How to force internet links to open in browser, not inside the HTML Help window?

Support never replied...

Please vote for this to be corrected:

https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/FRMAKER-7872

I guess the FM developers can fix this in 10 minutes, it should be such a minor code change. But for me this is a huge problem.

I have now updated FM, but there's no change. Same behavior as before.

I would update first & try it again - Support is only going to want you to be on the latest version anyways.

Using the FM19 from two weeks ago. (Not the yesterday release.)

I've just sent Adobe support a message. If they have no solution, I'll report a bug.

Why chm? Our documentation consists of several chm files, some of them FM-generated, some generated from other tools. We merge them into one common documentation set. After 2 weeks with FM19, I'd also like to go HTML5.

Ok, so you need to see if FM2019 can generate that sort of link - are you all patched up with the latest? Does that synatx produce the correct HTML if you generate something like HTML5? If that's the case, you should log it as a bug with the FM team (use the Tracker) & they might be able to do something with the way the target= line is created in the CHM. Your immediate workaround is to generate the CHM, then use HTML Workshop to decompile it, fix the HTML links, and recompile it.
btw - why such an ancient format? All the dev is going into HTML5.

Yes, the non-FM19 chm link opens in the browser, just as wanted.

And does that non-FM source link open in the browser instead of the CHM shell? If you manually edit the HTML in the CHM does it behave?

Hi Jeff,

Unfortunately, it makes no difference.

My FM19 Hypertext now looks like:

message URL http://www.somewhere.com target="_blank

And the generated HTML Help source comes out as:

<a href="http://www.somewhere.com &quot;target=&quot;_blank">

But is still opened inside the HTML Help window. (The pdf and responsive HTML5 output still work fine.)

EDIT:

When I check another chm, non-FM19 generated, the generated HTML Help source looks like:

<a href="http://www.somewhere.com" target="_blank">

Have you tried adding 
target="_blank
to your message URL https://www.example.com line? Don't include the final quote to close the _blank part - that will get added when the HTML is generated.