I have a JavaScript chat client running in one browser tab (call it tab A). Now when a message arrives the user might be on another browser tab (call it tab B). I'm looking for ways to change the focus from tab B to my chat client (tab A) when such a message arrives.
I could not find a way to do this.
It is not possible - due to security concerns.
unless by "tab" you mean a window and a popup window that (due to browser preferences) opened up in a new tab. If this is the case, then yes you can.
//focus opener... from popup
window.opener.focus();
//focus popup... from opener
yourPopupName.focus();
The best you could would probably be to change the title of the page alerting the user the tab needs attention (maybe also the favicon - look at how meebo does it, it's really annoying but effective)
It is possible to shift focus back to Tab A by means of an alert in Tab A e.g. alert('New Message')
However, you need to be careful using this as it is very likely to annoy people. You should only use it if you make it optional in your app. Otherwise, updating Tab A's title and/or the favicon would appear to be best as nc3b says.
Chrome and firefox now have notifications. I think notifications are probably a more user friendly way to alert the user that something has changed on your app than popping an alert and forcing them to your page.
Using Javascript, triggering an alert can have the desired effect. Run this code in your console, or add to your html file in one tab and switch to another tab in the same browser.
setTimeout(function(){
alert("Switched tabs");
},
5000);
The alert appearing after the timeout will trigger tab switch. Or you can do something similar! For UX reasons however, you can still use a ping or add and indicator like in Facebook's message counter in the page title ( (1) Facebook ). You can also experiment with Notifications API (experimental).
this worked for me on form submit to reopen the target window..
so it will call window.open on the same target (or new if changed) and then continue to submit the form.
var open_target = function (form){
var windowName = jQuery(form).attr('target');
window.open("", windowName );
return true;
};
<form target="_search_elastic" onsubmit="return open_target(this);">
</form>
Some regular chrome based browser may be controlled by chrome debugger protocol, If browser open with flag --remote-debugging-port=***,I have used the tool cyrus-and/chrome-remote-interface on github and call the CDP.Activate([options],callback) method to switch the browser tab. It works on New MS Edge, should work on chrome also. But sadly this did not work in vivaldi browser, the most feature rich browser I want to use.
Related
actually I am making a testing program.so I don't want the candidate to search google for the answers. So what I want to do is if they open another tab or another browser during the test time, they will be redirected to a page saying you cheated. How can I achieve this?
If you have:
<textarea id="dontcheat"></textarea>
You can use
$("#dontcheat").focusout(function(){
window.location.href = "youCheated.html"
});
Snippet
var cheatCount = 0;
$("#swiperNoSwiping").focusout(function() {
cheatCount++;
$("#cheatCount").text(cheatCount);
});
I'm not certain about cross-browser compatibility, but on Chrome at least the focusout event fires when you:
Click outside the text box
Switch to another tab
Minimise the window
However, anyone can easily bypass this if JS is disabled or through Inspect Element on Chrome.
you need to create proxy for this, if you want to restrict access to any site while the test, you need that all computers in the network will pass through a gateway that you can be filter or change the packet, is more low level that you think...
I have an application which had developed according to IE6.
Now Because of IE8 tabbing features not the application have been start giving problem.
The Problem is that,
if I have opened first context in "tab1" and then open second context in "tab2".
Now when I back to "tab1" and refresh the page then it loads the second context that is new one.
This is logically correct but I want to block the user while opening the second tab so that user restrict to only first tab.
So I have been come to conclusion that we can do this with JavaScript by getting some tab event, but I am not too much familiar with JavaScript.
Please tell me is there any solution if you have in your mind for above problem,
or tell me is there any way so that we can catch the tab event.
Praise all things glorious: There is no way to prevent a user from opening a new tab. In Firefox, you can cruelly prevent a user from using keyboard shortcuts to open a new tab by returning false from an input element's onkeypress event, but it's still possible to open a new tab otherwise.
The solution? Well, from what you're saying, it sounds as though you're using the session to store the user's current page (and, well, most everything else, but that's another story). Having spent a lot of time using a web application that was built that way, I can tell you firsthand: don't do this! The web already has a wonderful method for storing the user's current page: the URL.
It seems like when trying to open 2 windows from a succession of windows.open calls, it only allows the first window to open and deletes the reference to the second window. I know this probably sounds a little kludgy, but we do need to have that second popup.
Any ideas?
Unfortunately we are addressing a user-case, where ie6 on the user end has popup blocker enabled.
EDIT: I just realized that you probably are using a blank ('') window name for both windows:
var win = window.open(url, '', 'blah=1');
var win2 = window.open(url2, '', 'stuff=1'); //later
This is probably handled with different windows in browsers other than IE6.
If that does not work, you might consider injecting divs that display on top of your content (instead of using popups), which is considered a better practice.
The IE pop-up blocker, by default, only allows one new window to be opened per user-initiated-action (i.e. a click on some element). If you try to open two new windows in the same handler in response to a single user-initiated-action, only the first window will successfully be opened. This is by design.
There is an override key that users can use: on IE6 I think it is CTRL, but it might be CTRL+ALT because it got changed in later versions (not sure if that was back-ported or not).
If you go to Tools->Internet Options->Pop-up Blocker->Settings->Blocking Level: and look at the value in the drop-down box for "High" it will tell you the override key in a parenthetical phrase.
In the same settings dialog, you can also add this specific site to the "Allowed sites" list, and then pop-up blocker will let all new window creation attempts on said site succeed. I'm pretty sure this list can also be pre-populated through group policy or IEAK or something like that too. But it's just a list that is stored in the registry, so you can also write log-in scripts that will just add things if they need to be added.
If you have further questions, let me know (I was the developer who implemented the IE pop-up blocker).
IE6 makes it sound like it's a corporate installation. Assuming that's true, contact your administrators and have group policy set your internal website to be in the Intranet zone, and turn off the popup blocker for that zone.
I've written a bookmarklet to look a word up in a Chinese dictionary:
javascript:Qr=document.getSelection();if(!Qr){void(Qr=prompt('%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%AD',''))};if(Qr)(function(){window.open('http://nciku.com/search/all/'+Qr);})();
This opens a new tab with search results for your selected word or a word you type in at the prompt. Is there a way to load the new tab in the background? I'd like to keep the focus on the page I'm looking at, and look at the search results later.
There is an option "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately" in Firefox, this doesn't help.
Edit: Note that this is for my use, so an answer that tells me how to change Firefox (3.0.11) settings to do this would work as well. Also I've tried the following modification, but it's still focusing the new tab.
javascript:Qr=document.getSelection();if(!Qr){void(Qr=prompt('%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%AD',''))};if(Qr)(function(){var%20oldWin=this;window.open('http://nciku.com/search/all/'+Qr);oldWin.focus()})();
Edit 2:
Looking around to see if I can find an answer I see this guy who's got the opposite problem (new tabs don't get focus, but he wants them to have it), but with no resolution:
Possible to set tab focus in IE7 from JavaScript
There's apparently talk about a _tab target in HTML 5, but that doesn't help me much.
http:/ /forums.whatwg.org/viewtopic.php?t=185&highlight=tab+focus
(apparently as a new user I can only post one link, so I've mauled it)
This seems pretty broken browser behaviour if this is impossible.
In FireFox type about:config and change browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground to true.
This has worked for me with browser bookmarklets.
source: http://lifehacker.com/263940/force-links-to-open-in-the-background
No, not programmatically through JavaScript. You don't have control over the user's browser preferences, only they have control over that.
Moreover, even if you did have control over that, you shouldn't do it, because it undermines the control that your script is given to you by the browser. If the user wants a page to open in the background, they should be able to control it, not you, as the developer.
Apparently this is only possible with previously opened windows, not the root window.
Calls to window.open with the same
window name as an already existing
window, loads the URL into that window
and gives a reference to the window
back. The window isn't given focus,
its opener property isn't changed, and
a third argument to window.open is
ignored. You can use the focus method
to give the window focus manually.
var oldWin = window.open("url.html","oldName");
oldWin.focus(); // give focus
Facing the same issue, I only noticed that if you alert() something just after opening the window, Firefox would not switch to the newly opening tab.
How can we detect when a user opens a new window. The user is already authenticated and we make heavy use of sessions.
We were trying to avoid Ctrl+N javascript hooks but maybe that is an option.
I am assuming the request is the exact same URL...with Ctrl+N?
We were trying to avoid ctrl-n javascript hooks
Forget it. Whilst you could in theory try to catch keypress events for ‘n’ with the Control key modifier, there are any number of other ways to open a new window or tab which may be more likely to be used, and you won't be able to catch. File->New Window/Tab, middle click or shift-click link, middle click back/forward buttons, right-click-open-in-new-window, open bookmark in new tab, double-click browser icon...
The user is already authenticated and we make heavy use of sessions.
That shouldn't be a problem in itself. I guess what you mean is that your application is dumping all sorts of page-specific data in the session that it shouldn't have, and now you find the application breaks when you have more than one window open on it? Well, commiserations and happy rewriting.
In the meantime about all you can do is tell the user “please don't try to open two browser windows on the same application”. There are potential ways you can make JavaScript on one page notice that JavaScript is running on another page in the same domain at the same time, generally involving using document.cookie as a inter-page communications conduit. But that's also a bit fragile.
If opening a new window causes a problem in your application, then you should fix the application code to handle it instead of trying to apply an inconsistent and unreliable client-side "bandage". That's my opinion.
Why?
And anyway you can't detect it. User can open new window not only with Ctrl+N but also with File->New Window.
You could possibly put a window count into the session and increment it on window.onload and decrement it on window.onunload.
Imagine me tutting, sucking air through my teeth and going "better you than me, guvna" if you use that, though.
What I have done to solve this issue is when the user authenticates set the window name on valid login.
<script>
window.name = 'oneWindow';
</script>
And then on the master page do a javascript check:
<script>
if (window.history.length == 0 || window.name != 'oneWindow')
//history length to see if it's a new tab or opened in a new window 0 for IE, 1 for FF
//window name to see if it's a CTRL + N new window
</script>
If the check is true then hide/remove the main content of the page and show a message stating they are doing something unsupported.
This works when your login page is not tied into the master page.
If you do not have a master page then I would suggest putting the check on all your pages.
Yes and no,
You'll always see it if a control has focus, else the event is sent directly to the browser and the code on the page never hear about it.
In my experience you can't hijack the browser's shortcut, your mileage may vary. You are likely to know it happened but the browser will do its thing (for obvious reason)
In most browsers, the effect of Ctrl-N is to open a new window at the same URL as the old one and associate it with the same sessionID.
Your best bet would be to modify the back end code if possible and allow for such things. Breaking the browser's feature is never a good thing.