The Window.open() method
//Create new Window
options = "toolbar=0,status=0,menubar=0,scrollbars=0," +
"resizable=0,width=300,height=200";
newwindow = window.open("", "mywindow", options);
newwindow.document.writeln(LocalTime);
newwindow.document.write(contents);
newwindow.document.close();
When I want to open a new window, first I think of a name for the window, such as MyWindow. Then I open the window with this command:
MyWindow = window.open()
The window.open method can have 3 optional parameters. Parameters are things you can type inside the parentheses to specify how you want the window to open. The 3 parameters are:
- A URL so that the window contains a specific HTML document.
- A title for the window
- A set of options for the window's appearance, including height and width.
For example, let's say I created a page called mytest.htm. It might be as simple as this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Test Page </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
This is only a test
</BODY>
</HTML>
I could open it into a new window like this.
NewWindow = window.open("mytest.htm")
The second parameter is the default title of the window. The third parameter allows you to set a long list of options about your new window. Here are the options you can set.
| Option | choice | description |
|---|---|---|
| toolbar | yes/no or 1/0 | Display toolbar |
| status | yes/no or 1/0 | Display status bar at bottom of window |
| menubar | yes/no or 1/0 | Display menubar |
| scrollbars | yes/no or 1/0 | Display horizontal and vertical scrollbars |
| resizable | yes/no or 1/0 | Window can be resized |
| location | yes/no or 1/0 | Display location box |
| directories | yes/no or 1/0 | Display directory buttons |
| width | # of pixels | Exact width of new window |
| height | # of pixels | Exact height of new window |
If I want to open the mytest document in a small, 100 x 100 pixel window I would type this:
NewWindow = window.open("mytest.htm","mywindow","width=100,height=100")
As you can see, the window.open() command can get very long. One solution is to specify the options in a seperate variable, which I call "options." Then your command would look like this:
options = "width=100,height=100"
NewWindow = window.open("mytest.htm","mywindow",options)
Let's try creating a larger list of options. Experiment with different options in this table. A variable called options will be created below with your list of window options.