How To Live Edit Javascript In Chrome

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Working with browser windows is a common task for web developers. One common requirement is to close a window or a tab using JavaScript code. In this blog post, we will discuss how to close a window or a tab using JavaScript.

Using the window.close() method

JavaScript provides an easy and straightforward method to close a window: window.close(). It attempts to close the current browser window or tab, but keep in mind that browser security settings can restrict this behavior.

window.close();

Please note that most modern browsers have security restrictions that prevent a script from closing a window if it was not opened by the same script. This is to prevent malicious scripts from closing windows without the user’s consent.

Creating a Close Button

Let’s create a simple example to see how this works. We will create a button with an onclick event that calls the window.close() method.

<button onclick="closeWindow()">Close Window</button>

<script>
    function closeWindow() {
        window.close();
    }
</script>

In this example, we create an HTML button with an onclick attribute that calls the closeWindow() function when the button is clicked. The closeWindow() function in the script simply calls the window.close() method to close the window or tab.

Opening and Closing a New Window

If you want to have more control over the closing behavior, you can open a new window using JavaScript and then close it later. When a script opens a new window, the restrictions on the window.close() method are generally relaxed.

Here’s an example of opening and closing a new window using JavaScript:

<button onclick="openNewWindow()">Open New Window</button>
<button onclick="closeNewWindow()">Close New Window</button>

<script>
    let newWindow;

    function openNewWindow() {
        newWindow = window.open("", "_blank", "width=400, height=300");
    }

    function closeNewWindow() {
        if (newWindow) {
            newWindow.close();
        }
    }
</script>

In this example, we have two buttons for opening and closing a new window. The openNewWindow() function calls the window.open() method to open a new window and assigns it to a variable named newWindow. The closeNewWindow() function checks if the newWindow variable exists and calls the window.close() method on it.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we’ve discussed how to close a window or a tab using JavaScript. Please note that using the window.close() method might be restricted in some cases due to browser security settings. However, when you open a new window using JavaScript, you have more control over closing it later.