window.opener is undefined on Internet Explorer

Question

When I am trying to access an element of my Parent window from a Pop-up window, I am getting window.opener as undefined.

var opener = window.opener;
if(opener) 
{
    console.log("opener element found");
    var elem = opener.$('.my-parent-element');
    if (elem) {
        console.log("parent element found");
        elem.show(); 
    }
}

Here opener is undefined. Am I doing something wrong?

I have tried parent.window.opener / window.top / window.top.document.bodyetc., but it doesn't help either. It works fine in other browsers.

I have see the question Window Opener Alternative, but I cannot change opening my popup with showModalDialog right away. Probably, this would be last option.

Answer 1

I had the same problem and it was due to Internet Explorer Security Options, in particular because my popup was going to an External website (Internet area) and the parent was an internal page (Intranet area). The "Protected Mode" was only activated for the "Internet". I activated it for the "Local intranet" and now it works.

To find this option in IE:

• Go to Internet Options
• Security tab
• Click on "Internet" or "Local intranet" icon
• Check or uncheck the option "Enable Protected Mode"
• Restart IE

Answer 2

You can use the showModalDialog function and pass arguments to it, if the browser used is IE. Simply pass window object as an argument.

After that you can access the arguments from the modal window using dialogArguments.

More details can be found in the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533723%28VS.85%29.aspx

Example of retrieve:

window.showModalDialog(theURL, window);

//in the modal dialog you can use this to retrieve the window.
var openerWindow = window.dialogArguments;