loop popup confusion

Question

Can someone tell me how to make my URLs properly loop into the window.open I created? I’m wondering if the loop is the right answer to make each URL rotate based on

Answer 1

You are not updating the value of rotate..

Try doing this

<script type="text/javascript">
var urls = ["http://www.espn.com","http://www.disney.com","http://www.codingforums.com"];
var rotate = 0;

function goRandom( )
{
    rotate= (rotate+1) % urls.length;
    var newwin = window.open(

                                     urls[ rotate ],
                                     "POPUP",
                                     "height=400,width=600,scrollbars=yes"                          );
}
    var loop= setInterval(goRandom, 5000);
</script>

Answer 2

While the other answers are technically correct, here's a simplied version if you're just starting out with js, all that % can be confusing.

// setup urls
var urls = ["http://www.espn.com","http://www.disney.com","http://www.codingforums.com"];

// rotate is a global variable so can be accessed anywhere
var rotate = 0;

function goRandom( )
{
    var newwin = window.open(
                                     urls[ rotate ],
                                     "POPUP",
                                     "height=400,width=600,scrollbars=yes"                          );

    // move to the next array position
    rotate++;

    // Check if at the end of the array and move back to the beginning
    if (rotate >= urls.length)
        rotate = 0;
}


// Keep going indefinitely
setInterval(goRandom, 5000);

Now, your function is called goRandom() while this will goSequence() (or goNext()), so you can change this without any form of loop to pick a random url (though your loop var is called 'rotate' so maybe not what you wanted).

// setup urls (global so accessed from anywhere)
var urls = ["http://www.espn.com","http://www.disney.com","http://www.codingforums.com"];

function goRandom( )
{
    // get a random url
    var rotate = Math.floor(Math.random() * (urls.length - 1));

    var newwin = window.open(
                                     urls[ rotate ],
                                     "POPUP",
                                     "height=400,width=600,scrollbars=yes"                          );
}


// Keep going indefinitely
setInterval(goRandom, 5000);

Answer 3

Just change

urls[ rotate ],

to

urls[ (rotate++) % urls.length ],

The index is incremented each iteration and % urls.length (% is used for getting the remainder after division, hence it ensures the result never grows beyond the array size). You can try it here (remember to allow popups).