[whatwg] Details on window.open

[Ian Hickson]

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, David Bruant wrote:
> 
> I've been searching on the web for complete documentation about
> window.open and I have some unanswered questions.
> 1) what are the rules for popup blockers? Is every call to window.open
> blocked in modern browsers or are there exceptions?

Per the spec, calls that would create a new browsing context are blocked 
unless called from the handler of a trusted 'click' event. (The spec also 
allows blocking in some other cases, and requires blocking in some sandbox 
cases, but those aren't popup-blocking-related.)

I don't know if the spec is overly strict here; maybe it should also be 
possible on other trusted events e.g. mousedown or keydown?


> 2) About the third argument, is there a somewhat interoperable overlap 
> in implementations or is it just an intricable mess?

I haven't tried to spec it, because as far as I can tell, UAs could 
completely ignore it with no ill effects. If I'm wrong about this, then we 
should spec something.


> 3) Is what is returned a instance of Window or WindowProxy? By that I 
> mean that if one browsing context A opens C and B window.open C too 
> changing the URL (and reloading), is A supposed to have access to the 
> new C or only the old browsing context?

You can never get hold of a raw Window object, only WindowProxy objects. 
In your scenario, provided it's all same-origin, A will have an object 
that reflects that the browsing context has a new document loaded in it. 
(It's only one browsing context though.)


> 4) About step 4 of The rules for choosing a browsing context given a
> browsing context name [1]:
>
> > If the given browsing context name is not |_blank| and there exists a 
> > browsing context whose name is the same as the given browsing context 
> > name, and the current browsing context is allowed to navigate that 
> > browsing context, and the user agent determines that the two browsing 
> > contexts are related enough that it is ok if they reach each other,
>
> What does "related enough" mean?

That's up to the UA.


> How is it implemented in different browsers?

It varies. Gecko, IIRC, thinks everything is related enough. Chrome 
probably limits it to same-process windows.


> > then that browsing context must be the chosen one. If there are 
> > multiple matching browsing contexts, the user agent should select one 
> > in some arbitrary consistent manner, such as the most recently opened, 
> > most recently focused, or more closely related.
>
> What is the "consistent manner" in each implementation?

I do not know. I hope that this doesn't matter for interop; if I'm wrong, 
let me know and we shall spec it.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'