Hey folks,

Just wondering if Google Chrome is going to support window.focus() at some point. When I mean support, I mean have it work. The call to it doesn't fail, it just doesn't do anything. All other major browsers do not have this problem: FireFox, IE6-IE8 and Safari.

I have a client-side class for managing browser windows. When I first create a window the window comes into focus, but subsequent attempts to bring focus to the window do not work.

From what I can tell, this appears to be a security feature to avoid annoying pop-ups and it does not appear to be a WebKit issue as it works in Safari.

I know one idea someone brought forward was to close the window then reopen it, but this is a horrible solution. Googling shows that I do not appear to be the only person frustrated with this.

And just to be 100% clear, I mean new windows, not tabs (tabs cannot be focused from what I've read) and all the windows being opened are in the same domain.

Any ideas?

MyCompany = { UI: {} }; // Put this here if you want to test the code. I create these namespaces elsewhere in code.

MyCompany.UI.Window = new function() {
    // Private fields
    var that = this;
    var windowHandles = {};

    // Public Members
    this.windowExists = function(windowTarget) {
        return windowTarget && windowHandles[windowTarget] && !windowHandles[windowTarget].closed;
    }

    this.open = function(url, windowTarget, windowProperties) {
        // See if we have a window handle and if it's closed or not.
        if (that.windowExists(windowTarget)) {

            // We still have our window object so let's check if the URLs is the same as the one we're trying to load.
            var currentLocation = windowHandles[windowTarget].location;

            if (
                (
                    /^http(?:s?):/.test(url) && currentLocation.href !== url
                )
                    ||
                (
                    // This check is required because the URL might be the same, but absolute,
                    // e.g. /Default.aspx ... instead of http://localhost/Default.aspx ...
                    !/^http(?:s?):/.test(url) &&
                    (currentLocation.pathname + currentLocation.search + currentLocation.hash) !== url
                )
            ) {
                // Not the same URL, so load the new one.
                windowHandles[windowTarget].location = url;
            }

            // Give focus to the window. This works in IE 6/7/8, FireFox, Safari but not Chrome.
            // Well in Chrome it works the first time, but subsequent focus attempts fail,. I believe this is a security feature in Chrome to avoid annoying popups.
            windowHandles[windowTarget].focus();
        }
        else
        {
            // Need to do this so that tabbed browsers (pretty much all browsers except IE6) actually open a new window
            // as opposed to a tab. By specifying at least one window property, we're guaranteed to have a new window created instead
            // of a tab.
            windowProperties = windowProperties || 'menubar=yes,location=yes,width=700, height=400, scrollbars=yes, resizable= yes';
            windowTarget = windowTarget || "_blank";

            // Create a new window.
            var windowHandle = windowProperties ? window.open(url, windowTarget, windowProperties) : window.open(url, windowTarget);

            if (null === windowHandle) {
                alert("You have a popup blocker enabled. Please allow popups for " + location.protocol + "//" + location.host);
            }
            else {
                if ("_blank" !== windowTarget) {
                    // Store the window handle for reuse if a handle was specified.
                    windowHandles[windowTarget] = windowHandle;
                    windowHandles[windowTarget].focus();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}