Develop Reference

New window in ajax call blocked

I've searched on the internet for a while for my solution, but none of the solutions worked for me or I didn't used it correct (I think).
I have a function which looks like this and is being called when a image is clicked:
function goToGoogle() {
setTimeout(function() {
$.ajax("url/path", {
data: "data"
}, function(data){
window.open("https://www.google.nl", "_blank");
});
}, 10000);
}
When window.open is called, a message pops up and says that the popup is blocked.
I've tried to create a variable with window.open in it (var myWindow = window.open( ... );) and then set the correct url with myWindow.location = "www.correct.url";. But this will result in a error in the console.log, which says that myWindow is undefined and location can't be called because of that.
Another thing I tried was to set async to false in the ajax call, but that's depreciated.
Does anyone how to make sure it opens a new window, even a few seconds after the click event?
By the way, I need the timeout of 10 seconds.. Nothing more, nothing less.

Your code works perfectly, because
a message pops up and says that the popup is blocked.
That's just a browser policy to block popups. That's up to user to allow open popups on your site or to forbid.

Firefox add-on: how to tell if a window is in the background

In a Firefox Add-on SDK add-on, how do I tell whether a window is in the background, ie. visible but not focused?
For example, if I bring a different application to the foreground, the Firefox window becomes unfocused but is still visible.
The reason why I want to do this is because I have a CPU-intensive content script running in the active window, and I'd like to pause it to avoid unnecessary overhead whenever the user isn't actively engaged with the window - meaning it's in the background or minimized.
require("sdk/windows").activeWindow keeps returning the last clicked window even if it's in the background or minimized. There doesn't seem to be any property for the window's focus state.
I can also get use the following code to get an nsIDocShell:
var mostRecentWindow = require("sdk/window/utils").getMostRecentBrowserWindow();
var docShell = require("sdk/window/utils").getWindowDocShell(mostRecentWindow);
Now when I query the docShell.isActive property, it returns true even if the window is in the background.
The one advantage of docShell.isActive is that it returns false when the window is minimized, while activeWindow returns true even in this case. But it's still missing information about whether the window is in the background or not.

Based on the suggestion by #willlma, this code seems to do the trick:
const windows = require('sdk/windows').browserWindows;
const tabs = require("sdk/tabs");
var anyWindowActive = true;
var refreshTimeoutId;
windows.on('deactivate', function(window) {
if (window == windows.activeWindow) {
anyWindowActive = false;
}
clearTimeout(refreshTimeoutId);
refreshTimeoutId = setTimeout(refreshTabStates, 50);
});
windows.on('activate', function(window) {
anyWindowActive = true;
clearTimeout(refreshTimeoutId);
refreshTimeoutId = setTimeout(refreshTabStates, 50);
});
tabs.on('activate', function(tab) {
clearTimeout(refreshTimeoutId);
refreshTimeoutId = setTimeout(refreshTabStates, 50);
});
function refreshTabStates() {
refreshTimeoutId = null;
for (let win of windows) {
for (let tab of win.tabs) {
var shouldBeActive = anyWindowActive
&& tab == tabs.activeTab
&& win == windows.activeWindow;
notifyTab(tab, shouldBeActive);
}
}
}
where notifyTab() is a function that posts a message to that tab's content script (if any) about whether it should be running or not.
setTimeout is used to avoid multiple calls to refreshTabStates in quick succession. For example, if you click on an inactive tab in a window that's not the current one, that one click results in window.deactivate, window.activate and tab.activate events.
Also, the initial state is a problem. What if the user launches Firefox and puts it in the background before any script has managed to run?

closing the current tab in a chrome extention

I am writing a chrome extension that when clicked, will close the current tab after a given amount of time.
I am sending a message with the time, from popup.js to background.js. But the tab won't close.
The alert works when I uncomment it, so it seems to be just the remove line. I assume it's something about tab.id.
chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(
function message(request, sender, callback) {
var ctr = 0;
ctr = parseInt(request.text, 10);
setTimeout(function() {
chrome.tabs.getCurrent(function(tab) {
//window.alert("Working?");
chrome.tabs.remove(tab.id, function(){});
});
}, ctr);
}
);

1.
chrome.extension has no onMessage event. I assume you mean the correct chrome.runtime.onMessage
2.
You have probably misunderstood(*) the purpose of chrome.tabs.getCurrent:
Gets the tab that this script call is being made from. May be undefined if called from a non-tab context (for example: a background page or popup view).
Since, you are calling it from a non-tab context (namely the background page), tab will be undefined.
(*): "misunderstood" as in "not bother to read the manual"...
3.
It is not clear if you want to close the active tab at the moment the timer is set or at the moment it is triggered. (In your code, you are attempting to do the latter, although the former would make more sense to me.)
The correct way to do it:
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function message(msg) {
var ctr = 0;
ctr = parseInt(msg.text, 10);
setTimeout(function() {
chrome.tabs.query({ active: true }, function(tabs) {
chrome.tabs.remove(tabs[0].id);
});
}, ctr);
});
Also, note that using functions like setTimeout and setInteval will only work reliably in persistent background pages (but not in event pages). If possible, you are advised to migrate to event pages (which are more "resource-friendly"), in which case you will also have to switch to the alarms API.

Javascript detect closing popup loaded with another domain

I am opening a popup window and attaching an onbeforeunload event to it like this:
win = window.open("http://www.google.com", "", "width=300px,height=300px");
win.onbeforeunload = function() {
//do your stuff here
alert("Closed");
};
If I leave the URL empty, the new popup opens with "about:blank" as the address but when I close it, I see the alert.
If I open in as you see it (with an external URL), once it's closed, I cannot see the alert anymore. Any idea why this is happening?

As mentioned, same origin policy prevents Javascript from detecting such events. But there's a quite simple solution which allows you to detect closure of such windows.
Here's the JS code:
var openDialog = function(uri, name, options, closeCallback) {
var win = window.open(uri, name, options);
var interval = window.setInterval(function() {
try {
if (win == null || win.closed) {
window.clearInterval(interval);
closeCallback(win);
}
}
catch (e) {
}
}, 1000);
return win;
};
What it does: it creates new window with provided parameters and then sets the checker function with 1s interval. The function then checks if the window object is present and has its closed property set to false. If either ot these is not true, this means, that the window is (probably) closed and we should fire the 'closeCallback function' callback.
This function should work with all modern browsers. Some time ago Opera caused errors when checking properties from windows on other domains - thus the try..catch block. But I've tested it now and it seems it works quite ok.
We used this technique to create 'facebook-style' login popups for sites which doesn't support them via SDK (ehem... Twitter... ehem). This required a little bit of extra work - we couldn't get any message from Twitter itself, but the Oauth redireced us back to our domain, and then we were able to put some data in popup window object which were accessible from the opener. Then in the close callback function we parsed those data and presented the actual results.
One drawback of this method is that the callback is invoked AFTER the window has been closed. Well, this is the best I was able to achieve with cross domain policies in place.

You could listen to the 'focus' event of the opener window which fires when the user closes the popup.

Unfortunately, you're trying to communicate across domains which is prohibited by JavaScript's same origin policy. You'd have to use a server-side proxy or some other ugly hack to get around it.
You could try creating a page on your site that loads the external website in an iframe. You could then pop open that page and listen for it to unload.

I combined #ThomasZ's answer with this one to set an interval limit (didn't want to use setTimeout).
Example (in Typescript, declared anonymously so as not lose reference to "this"):
private _callMethodWithInterval = (url: string, callback: function, delay: number, repetitions: number) => {
const newWindow = window.open(url, "WIndowName", null, true);
let x = 0;
let intervalID = window.setInterval(() => {
//stops interval if newWindow closed or doesn't exist
try {
if (newWindow == null || newWindow.closed) {
console.info("window closed - interval cleared")
callback();
window.clearInterval(intervalID);
}
}
catch (e) {
console.error(`newWindow never closed or null - ${e}`)
}
//stops interval after number of intervals
if (++x === repetitions) {
console.info("max intervals reached - interval cleared")
window.clearInterval(intervalID);
}
}, delay)
}//end _callMethodWithInterval

Opening my page in firefox after installing the addon

HI,
My am trying to open my home page after the firefox restarts for the first time after installation.
For this i am adding the event handler on load page and checks where this event is executed for the first time or not.
window.addEventListener("load", initializeOverlay, false);
But my problem is how to open the page in new tab when the firefox get started. I use
`window.open("https://www.xyz.com/");`
but that opens the page in new window that might even be open in internet explorer.
So is there any way to open the page in new tab in same window which is going to be open.
Thanks
BHAVIK GOYAL

I manage to do something similar using preferences, rather than creating files, etc.
Inside of /defaults/preferences/default.js:
pref("extensions.extension_name.just_installed", true);
pref("extensions.extension_name.post_install_url", "http://www.google.com");
Then inside the main JS file for the add-on:
// Retrieve the preferences.
var prefs;
prefs = Components.classes["#mozilla.org/preferences-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIPrefService).getBranch("extensions.extension_name.");
prefs.QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIPrefBranch2);
// If we just installed, open the post-install page and update the preferences.
var just_installed = prefs.getBoolPref("just_installed");
var post_install_url = prefs.getCharPref("post_install_url");
if (just_installed) {
prefs.setBoolPref("just_installed", false);
gBrowser.selectedTab = gBrowser.addTab(prefs.getCharPref("post_install_url"));
}
Only problem is Firefox doesn't reset the preferences saved by an extension after that extension is uninstalled.

I got the answer. We can add the gbrowser.open("http://www.xyz.com/") to open in new tab and this statement has to be executed in new function that is by calling the other event handler function loadedoverlay which is defined as follow:
function loadedOverlay() {
try{
var file = Components.classes["#mozilla.org/file/local;1"].createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsILocalFile);
file.initWithPath(Components.classes["#mozilla.org/file/directory_service;1"].getService( Components.interfaces.nsIProperties).get("ProfD", Components.interfaces.nsIFile).path+"\\initialstart.txt");
if ( file.exists() == true )
{
}
else
{
file.create( Components.interfaces.nsIFile.NORMAL_FILE_TYPE, 420 );
var Website="http://www.emailstationery.com/";
gBrowser.addTab(Website);//This is for new Tab
}
} catch(e) {}
}
The call to this function has to be add in the load event function by adding the code of lines as below:-
var appcontent = document.getElementById("appcontent"); // browser
if(appcontent)
appcontent.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", loadedOverlay, true);