Hold variables across page refreshes in Javascript — The infamous “Close All” functionality
Say, you have an expandable menu (like the one in picture but the expansion is not Javascript driven) on the parent window and the parent window refreshes on every click of the node of the menu (the (+) and (-) kind of menus). You also have a “Close All” button on the parent window which is supposed to close all the child windows.
Ideally, you want to hold the names (or handles) of the child windows in order to close all the child windows when the “Close all” button is pressed. But since the parent window gets refreshed on menu node expansion, the Javascript array of child handles that i have disappears.
Bottom line, Javascript variables get reinitialized on page refreshes. But there is a workaround for this.
You can simply assign the array to a special variable called navigator.storedvariable
Something like,
navigator.storedvariable
This is the exact code i wrote for implementing the Closeall functionality
function closeChildWindows(){//retrieve all the names of childwindows
var childWindows = navigator.storedvariable;
if ( childWindows != null ){
//loop through each of the window
for (var k=0;k<childWindows.length;k++){
var openedWindowName = childWindows[k];
//Open all the child windows since we have already lost handles and then close again. The browser will open the child window in the same previous (stale) browser child window
winHandle = window.open(”,openedWindowName,’toolbar
//as soon as you open, close them. So that the user doesnt realise that the same browser was used again
if( winHandle && winHandle.open && !winHandle.closed)
{
winHandle.close();
}
}//end of for loop
} // end of childwindows!= null
//after closing all windows, reinitialize navigator.storedvariable
windowNames=new Array();
navigator.storedvariable
}
Tags: javascript
