Window.open and window.setFocus

[Ben Smeets]

Hi folks,

Have been trying to figure out a solution for the following problem by
reading lots of threads here, but doesn't work out. Hope someone can
help me.

I have a parent window which opens a popup window (child). What i
would like to do, is to be abke to keep surfing to other pages in the
parent and after (lets say) a couple of new pages, still be able to
say "child.setFocus ()";

The solutions i found here for setting focus on childs, all have to do
with:

var NAME = window.open.... ..
NAME.setFocus.. ..

But after refreshing the parent, i won't have the ability to call NAME
anymore or do i? Is there a way to call a child by using it's window
name, the one you give it when using window.open?

tnx in advance, Ben

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Re: Window.open and window.setFocus

Ben Smeets wrote:
[color=blue]
> I have a parent window which opens a popup window (child). What i
> would like to do, is to be abke to keep surfing to other pages in the
> parent and after (lets say) a couple of new pages, still be able to
> say "child.setFocus ()";
>
> The solutions i found here for setting focus on childs, all have to do
> with:
>
> var NAME = window.open.... ..
> NAME.setFocus.. ..
>
> But after refreshing the parent, i won't have the ability to call NAME
> anymore or do i?[/color]

No, you have not, `NAME' is then forgotten. The same goes for access after
navigating to other pages. You can workaround that, e.g., when using a
frameset and store the reference as property of the frameset Window object:

parent.NAME = window.open(... );

(Although JavaScript is case-sensitive, `NAME' as property for Window
objects is to be avoided since such objects already have a `name' property.)
[color=blue]
> Is there a way to call a child by using it's window name,[/color]

Use Google (Groups). `NAME' is _not_ the window's (internal) name,
it is the identifier of a reference to the created Window object.
[color=blue]
> the one you give it when using window.open?[/color]

If the window referenced by `NAME' is still open,

(window.open(". ..", "foobar", "...") || window).focus() ;

will do the trick. `foobar' is the same name you used when openened
the window the first time. However, the `foobar' window will most
certainly refresh before it is focused even if the URL is the same.


PointedEars