mailto link not working in chrome extension popup

Question

This issue drove me nuts for 2 days. I made a simple chrome extension which calls a server-side program that returns HTML that I then stuff into a div in the popup. It was all fine, except for the simple anchor link containing a "mailto:[email protected]" href. An email message composition window would not pop up.

Workaround: Add target="_blank" attribute

I would like to know why this is necessary.

Answer 1

It might have something to do with extensions running in separate processors from the browser, and therefore a target attribute is needed so that a new tab/window can be opened... there are some websites that don't work when displayed inside extension popups for this reason, because the extension frame won't navigate to certain pages...