Is it possible to switch browser tab?

Question

Here is my requirement,

I'm working on a enterprise application which is quite old, and it supports IE browser only. Now, there are chances that the user could open multiple tab/window from this application. I have written a custom timeout plugin for our purpose with jQuery idleTimer Plugin. When the countdown reaches 10 or less than 10, i need to switch to this tab/window to make the user aware that the page gets expired in less than 10 seconds.

So, is there a solution for this? I have tried window.focus() but does not work.

Maybe there's a better solution to detect which window is active and show the information there. Or in all open windows, it's the same application after all which should expire all tabs? — baloo, Mar 24 '13 at 16:53
[May be this can help](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2704206/how-to-change-browser-focus-from-one-tab-to-another) — Naveen, Mar 24 '13 at 16:57

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 24 '13 at 16:53

4

There isn't a cross-browser way do switch a tab that's 100% reliable, especially in newer browsers. It's actively blocked in most newer browsers. As a user, I'm glad it's difficult in most cases, impossible in others to do this.

answered Mar 24 '13 at 16:53

CrazyFellow

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 06 '15 at 09:26

2

If I understand your question correctly, setting a timeout for a Javascript alert in one page then move to another tab, the alert appearing after the timeout will trigger tab switch.

setTimeout(function(){ 
    alert("Switched tabs");
}, 
5000);

answered Jan 06 '15 at 09:26

William

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2
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How can you implement the "Move" part? – Nameless Aug 22 '17 at 11:34
The browser will do that automatically for you once the timeout period has expired – William Aug 23 '17 at 06:24
@AjayAradhya What I mean by "move" is even if you navigate to another page, the alert will always take you back to the tab which it is showing from – William Aug 23 '17 at 07:59
Wow. Soopar cool. I didn't know that. That should work fine here. Thanks :) – Nameless Aug 23 '17 at 09:23

Is it possible to switch browser tab?

2 Answers2

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