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Refresh the parent window from the child window in javascript

Answer 1

+3 A:

window.opener in the popup will refer to the window object of the opening window, so of course you should be able to call window.opener.location.reload();. Provided you don't run afoul of the Same Origin Policy, the popup window can call scripts and manipulate properties on the parent window object just like code in the parent can.

Here's a live example demonstrating the child calling back to a function on the parent, and also manipulating the parent directly. The full code for this is quoted below.

But that example didn't do exactly what you said, so I've done this one as well, which has the child refreshing the parent page via window.opener.location.reload().

Parent code of first live example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset=utf-8 />
<title>Parent Window</title>
<!--[if IE]>
  <script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
<![endif]-->
<style>
  article, aside, figure, footer, header, hgroup, 
  menu, nav, section { display: block; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
  <input type='button' id='btnOpen' value='Open Window'>
  <div id='display'></div>
</body>
<script type='text/javascript'>
  (function() {
    var btnOpen = document.getElementById('btnOpen');
    btnOpen.onclick = btnOpenClick;

    function btnOpenClick() {
      window.open('http://jsbin.com/ehupo4/2');
    }

    // Make the callback function available on our
    // `window` object. I'm doing this explicitly
    // here because I prefer to export any globals
    // I'm going to create explicitly, but if you
    // just declare a function in a script block
    // and *not* inside another function, that will
    // automatically become a property of `window`
    window.callback = childCallback;
    function childCallback() {
      document.getElementById('display').innerHTML =
          'Got callback from child window at ' + new Date();
    }
  })();
</script>
</html>

(You don't have to use a scoping function as I did above, but it's useful to keep your globals contained.)

Child code of first live example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset=utf-8 />
<title>Child Window</title>
<!--[if IE]>
  <script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
<![endif]-->
<style>
  article, aside, figure, footer, header, hgroup, 
  menu, nav, section { display: block; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
  <p>I'm the child window</p>
</body>
<script type='text/javascript'>
  if (window.opener) {
    // Call the provided callback
    window.opener.callback();

    // Do something directly
    var p = window.opener.document.createElement('p');
    p.innerHTML = "I was added by the child directly.";
    window.opener.document.body.appendChild(p);
  }
</script>
</html>

T.J. Crowder 2010-09-21 16:24:26

Answer 2

A:

window.parent.top.location = window.parent.top.location; (or something similiar to that will do it)

James Connell 2010-09-21 16:25:09

window.opener is perhaps better

James Connell 2010-09-21 16:26:05

Answer 3

+1 A:

If none of the other suggestions work (Remember to test in all major browsers), you can also try passing a reference of the parent window to the child window explicitly. Because window.open() should return a reference to the child window.. so you can do child = window.open() and then you can do something like child.myParent = window

Roberto Sebestyen 2010-09-21 16:29:42

Very true. `window.opener` is reliable barring the SOP, and this will run afoul of the SOP as well, but good to have options. You have to deal with timing a bit, which is part of why I prefer to have the child call the parent.

T.J. Crowder 2010-09-21 16:34:29

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Refresh the parent window from the child window in javascript

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