window.location on a Mac

Sometimes in JavaScript, you may want to redirect a user to another URL. This is often done setting the window.location properly like so:

window.location = "https://snook.ca/';

However, Safari and IE 5.2 for Mac (at least on OSX) behave a little differently than browsers on the PC. I put together this basic test page in order to see which scenarios work and which don't.

<script type="text/javascript">
function test3(){
  window.location = 'https://snook.ca/';
}
</script>
<p><a href="#" 
  onclick="window.location = 'https://snook.ca'">
  test 1</a></p>
<p><a href="#" 
  onclick="window.location = 'https://snook.ca'; 
      return false;">test 2</a></p>
<p><a href="#" 
  onclick="test3();">test 3</a></p>
<p><a href="#" 
  onclick="test3();return false;">test 4</a></p>
<p><a href="javascript:window.location = 
      'https://snook.ca';">test 5</a></p>

Tests 2, 4 and 5 work but 1 and 3 don't. And you can probably see why. In 1 and 3, we set the window.location to a new URL. This would normally redirect the user to the new page. But after the onclick event, it runs the URL contained in the href and overrides the redirect. In this case, the # keeps the page from redirecting altogether. By putting return false; we stop the href from being processed altogether.