window.open throws invalid argument in IE7-8-9b

Question

I don't know enough about javascript to figure out why the line in this script that begins "window.open..." throw an invalid argument error in IE7-8-9b. Works fine in Firefox and Webkit.

(The script is invoked with an onclick="share.fb()"in a html link and pops up a new browser window to share at FB and Twitter).

var share = {
    fb:function(title,url) {
    this.share('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=##URL##&t=##TITLE##',title,url);
    },
    tw:function(title,url) {
    this.share('http://twitter.com/home?status=##URL##+##TITLE##',title,url);
    },
    share:function(tpl,title,url) {
    if(!url) url = encodeURIComponent(window.location);
    if(!title) title = encodeURIComponent(document.title);
    
    tpl = tpl.replace("##URL##",url);
    tpl = tpl.replace("##TITLE##",title);
    
    window.open(tpl,"sharewindow"+tpl.substr(6,15),"width=640,height=480");
    }
    };

Answer 1

IE disallows spaces and other special characters in window name (the second argument). You need to remove them before passing as argument.

Replace

"sharewindow"+tpl.substr(6,15)

by

"sharewindow"+tpl.substr(6,15).replace(/\W*/g, '')

so that you end up with

window.open(tpl,"sharewindow"+tpl.substr(6,15).replace(/\W*/g, ''),"width=640,height=480");

(that's basically a regex replacement which says "replace every sequence of non-aplhabetic character by nothing")

Live demo here (configure if necessary your popup blocker)