Find window previously opened by window.open

Question

We\'ve got the following situation, running from a single domain:

Page A uses window.open() to open a named window (a popup player). window.open()

Answer 1

This should work. Add this code in the popup:

function updateOpener() {
    if (window.opener)
        window.opener.document.myPopupWindow = window;
    else
        setTimeout(updateOpener, 100);
}

updateOpener(); 

And this in onload of the parent window. To make sure myPopupWindow have been set wait 100 ms before accessing it.

setTimeout(function() {
    if (document.myPopupWindow) 
        document.myPopupWindow.focus();
}, 100);

Answer 2

AFAIK, no there isn't..

A kind-of-dirty-but-i-guess-it-will-work hack would be to periodically reset the reference on the parent window from within the popup using window.opener, with something like this code:

    setInterval(function() {
        if(window.opener) {
            window.opener.document.myPopupWindow = window
        }
    }, 100)

In the parent window, you'll be able to access document.myPopupWindow, even after a reload (well, 100ms after the reload). This should work cross browser.

Answer 3

If all the windows share a common Url origin you can register a ServiceWorker and then access all windows from the ServiceWorker: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Clients

AFAIK You won't be able to pass a reference to other windows from WorkerService to your window but you can establish communications with the ServiceWorker via

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Worker/postMessage
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Client/postMessage

Answer 4

Try this:

var playerUrl = 'http://my.player...';
var popupPlayer= window.open('', 'popupPlayer', 'width=150,height=100') ;
if(popupPlayer.location.href == 'about:blank' ){
    popupPlayer.location = playerUrl ;
}
popupPlayer.focus();

It will open a blank window with a unique name. Since the url is blank, the content of the window will not be reloaded.

Answer 5

Actually what you did is destroy the parent (page A) of the created window (Popup), so it has no more reference to the original parent therefore you can't get a direct reference.

The only solution I can think of is using a browser that offers you added javascript capability to cycle through active windows (tabs) and find one that has a special property (ie: your reloaded page A) that gets recognized by the popup.

Unfortunately I guess only firefox has some added capability or extension that gives you this flexibility. (it is also a security risk though)