How do you Notify Parent window after finished with Child?

[Frinavale]

I've seen this question being asked over and over again and don't know the answer.

Situation:
There's a web browser displaying a list off stuff.
There's a button that lets the end user add a new thing to the list of stuff.
A new web browser is opened to let the end user enter the information about the thing.

Question:
Is there a way to notify the Parent window when the user's finished entering information about the thing so that they can update the list of stuff?

Thanks for any pointers on how to achieve this.

-Frinny

[acoder]

You could use a button where onclick you could refer to the parent using window.opener. You could also avoid popup windows by using DHTML.

[Frinavale]

@acoder
I'll look into window.opener thanks.

@acoder
This is usually what I recommend because it just makes so much more sense in the long run...today I felt like giving people the answer they're actually looking for :)

[Frinavale]

Window.opener works like a dream :)

Thanks again!

[acoder]

You're welcome :) @Frinavale
I know what you mean. It's a bit like when a client insists on something that's not quite best practice.

[Frinavale]

There doesn't appear to be a window close event...

Is there a way for the parent to be able to tell when the child window is closed?

Or is there some event, other than a button click, that is fired when a window is closed...so that the parent can be notified?

[acoder]

You can use the window.closed property.

When a window is closed, on(before)unload should fire, but it also fires when moving/refreshing.

[Frinavale]

The fact that it's fired when the window is moving is not good.
I tried setting:

window.onbeforeunload = myFunctionThatNotifiesTheParentWindow;

However when I clicked the close button in the child window, the parent window was not notified.

<edit>Right, sometimes I'm an idiot, I placed that code in the parent window, not the child! No wonder it wasn't working >>blush<< I wonder if the other stuff I was trying would have worked had it have been placed in the child window...</edit>

[acoder]

Sorry, by moving, I meant moving back and forward in the browser history or simply visiting a link. Note that this doesn't happen in Opera, though.

How are you trying to notify the parent window? Do you call a function in the parent?

[Frinavale]

@acoder
That makes more sense....I tried moving the window and wondered why the closed event didn't fire when I moved it..........hehe

@acoder
Yes, I have a function in the parent that is called by the child.

Parent Page (onload the window parent window is given a name):

function DoStuff() {
    //Does some stuff
 }

Client Page:

window.onbeforeunload = CloseEvent;
 
function CloseEvent() {
   if (window.opener && !window.opener.closed) {
      window.opener.DoStuff();
   }
}

It's pretty simple actually...the reason it wasn't working before was because I had placed the window.onbeforeunload code in the wrong place.