Trying to handle a close window event on child window

Question

I have a website that opens a new window. I am trying to trigger onclose event on the child window (if the user closed the window the parent window will alert it).

I found a stackoverflow question regarding that problem at: How to run function of parent window when child window closes?

But, the answer also preforms action on the child window which I think I can't do because the child window opens a website not in my control (I can't edit its html).

I was thinking of using the following to trigger the on close event

var inFormOrLink;
$('a').live('click', function() { inFormOrLink = true; });
$('form').bind('submit', function() { inFormOrLink = true; });

$(window).bind("beforeunload", function() { 
    return inFormOrLink;
})

How do I apply this on the new tab/window?

I've found something that could have been helpful but again they are preforming action on the child window. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1777864/how-to-run-function-of-parent-window-when-child-window-closes — Neta Meta, Sep 12 '12 at 03:04
Do you have control over the original site that the child window loads? — Ian, Sep 12 '12 at 03:13
Yes i do have control over the parent(original website) i do not have control over the child ones though if there is a way of adding the functions to the child windows then i could some how do it. — Neta Meta, Sep 12 '12 at 03:47

Korvin Szanto · Answer 1 · 2012-09-12T01:57:00.913

This is not possible to do solely on the client-side. In order to do this, you'll need to do the following:

Upon opening a tab, send an ajax call to a script that doesn't stop loading until it receives a second ajax call, this is usually done with a script that waits for an sql value to exist before outputting.
Upon closing the tab, send the second ajax call to that script so that it replies to the original ajax call.

Viola.

I'm not aware of a simpler way to do this.

Original window:

function waitForTabClose(windowID) {
    $.post('waitfortabclose.php',{windowID:windowID},function(data) {
        if (data == 1) { 
             // Do tab closed stuff
        } else {
            waitForTabClose(windowID);
        }
    });
}

waitfortabclose.php

$i=1;
$wID = $_POST['windowID'];
do {
    if (file_get_contents($wID) == $wID) {
        echo 1;exit;
    }
    set_time_limit(30);
    sleep(5);
} while($i++ < 50);
echo 0;

New Tab

window.onclose = function() {
    $.post('windowclosed.php',{windowID:windowID);
};

windowclosed.php

$wID = $_POST['windowID'];
file_put_contents($wID,$wID);

This is pseudocode, and hasn't been tested. The functionality can be written in a lot of ways, this is just how I'd do it.

wouldnt that requires me to have control over the second pop up window as well(sever side) ? the pop up window usually loads other websites which means i am unable to change anything server side there. — Neta Meta, Sep 12 '12 at 02:00
Then to be perfectly honest, I don't think it's possible. You need some way of communicating between windows through the server, if not there isn't any way of you doing this. — AlbertEngelB, Sep 12 '12 at 04:46
Korin thanks for all your help and other but solution were found look at my answer — Neta Meta, Sep 12 '12 at 05:05

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 23 '15 at 07:47

0

Found a solution to what i were looking for. it was much easier then the above answer plus its actually works and what i were looking for.

var win = open('http://www.google.com');
if (win.closed) {
    alert('Window closed! Hoorah!');
}

Thanks very much for whoever tried helping.

edited Oct 23 '15 at 07:47

pbaris

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answered Sep 12 '12 at 04:50

Neta Meta

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Trying to handle a close window event on child window

2 Answers2