That’s what I learned today.

If you want to reference the main browser window from a pop-up window via javascript you use window.opener. I know, I know, all you code monkeys out there are like, "of course you doofus!" but I’m no javascript master so bite me.

I needed to do it at work and couldn’t remember how to do it. Interestingly enough, if you use target="main" in an anchor tag (after naming the main window via javascript window.name="main") then MSIE Windows and Mac will load the HREF in that main window. But Gecko browsers don’t seem to get it (at least not Mozilla 1.0/Windows). What works is onclick="window.opener.¬
location.href='yerhref';". That seems to work in everything I tested: Safari, Mac IE 5.2, WinIE 6, Moz 1.0. I don’t test in NS 4 as much as I should. I think in this case I will however.

Now you too can reference the main browser window from a pop-up window via javascript. If you feel like leaving comments on why you might want to do this, feel free. permanent link to this post