window.opener alternatives

Question

I am opening a modal popup window. Then I access a parent window textbox and other attributes using window.opener. It is working fine in firefox but not in IE8. It gives error 'window.opener is null'. How can I access parent window attributes in child window which works in both browsers.

Answer 1

There are two ways to solve the problem: Note: "window.opener" is not supported by IE if "showModalDialog" is been used.

1) Instead of "window.showModalDialog" use "window.open"

2) If you want to use "window.showModalDialog" then do the following:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    function YourFunction()
    {
        var opener = null;

        if (window.dialogArguments) // Internet Explorer supports window.dialogArguments
        { 
            opener = window.dialogArguments;
        } 
        else // Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera supports window.opener
        {        
            if (window.opener) 
            {
                opener = window.opener;
            }
        }       
        // write you code and refer "opener"
        window.close();
    }
</script>

Answer 2

You can pass arguments to showModalDialog function. Simply pass window object as an argument.

window.showModalDialog(theURL, window);

Yo can access the arguments from the modal window using dialogArguments. See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533723%28VS.85%29.aspx

var openerWindow = window.dialogArguments;