Web page or private intranet?
Window management is browser and OS dependent. HTML and ECMAscript have nothing to say about this.
If this is for a public website, then just don’t worry - as they say, "Do not break the network."
But I really want to!
If this is for some strictly managed (for example, intranet) application, then you need to resort to writing add-ons / extensions. It is definitely easier if you can limit yourself to a single browser and platform.
EDIT : Example for Firefox on Win32 ...
This solution works as a custom add-on for Firefox, which uses jsctypes internally to load the Win32 DLL. The JavaScript function window_focus() , which does what you want.
There are three parts to this solution:
- Preferred JavaScript code for loading / binding Win32 API
- CPP header file for our external dll
- Source CPP file for our external dll
I built a simple GUI DLL project in MSVC ++ with the later two files and compiled wmctrl.dll , depending on msvcr100.dll , and used Dependency Walker to find the "plain C" characters exported by DLLs to use js-ctypes. For example: ?wmctrl_find_window@ @ YAKPAD@Z is the "plain C" character for a C ++ api function called wmctrl_find_window .
As a warning, this code is based on temporarily changing the name of the window, which needs to be focused so that the Win32 APIs can check all the windows on the desktop to find the correct Firefox window.
You need to have access to the privileged APIs of the Mozilla platform, i.e. JavaScript inside Firefox Addon.
In your preferred JavaScript code:
// get API constants (might already be available) const {Cc,Ci,Cu} = require("chrome"); // import js-ctypes var file=null, lib=null, ctypes = {}; Cu.import("resource://gre/modules/ctypes.jsm", ctypes); var ctypes = ctypes.ctypes; // build platform specific library path var filename = ctypes.libraryName("wmctrl"); // automatically adds '.dll' var comp = "@mozilla.org/file/directory_service;1"; var file = Cc[comp].getService(Ci.nsIProperties).get("CurProcD", Ci.nsIFile); file.append("browser_code"); // or whereever you put your DLL file.append(filename); // get the JavaScript library interface (load the library) var lib = ctypes.open(file.path); // wmctrl_find_window: returing unsigned 32bit (long) "window handle" // takes string "window title". var find_window = lib.declare( " ?wmctrl_find_window@ @ YAKPAD@Z ", /* plain "C" DLL symbol */ ctypes.stdcall_abi, ctypes.uint32_t, /* return type: uint32 */ ctypes.char.ptr); /* parameter: string */ // wmctrl_window_focus: takes unsigned 32bit (long) "window handle". var window_focus = lib.declare( " ?wmctrl_window_focus@ @ YAXK@Z ", /* plain "C" DLL symbol */ ctypes.stdcall_abi, ctypes.void_t, /* return type: void */ ctypes.uint32_t); /* parameter: uint32 */
wmctrldll.h
#ifdef WMCTRLDLL_EXPORTS #define WMCTRLDLL_API __declspec(dllexport) #else #define WMCTRLDLL_API __declspec(dllimport) #endif WMCTRLDLL_API void wmctrl_window_focus (unsigned long wid); WMCTRLDLL_API unsigned long wmctrl_find_window(char* find_title);
wmctrldll.cpp
typedef struct { HWND hWnd; char title[255]; } myWinSpec; BOOL CALLBACK EnumWindowsProc(HWND hWnd, LPARAM lParam) { char String[255]; myWinSpec* to_find = (myWinSpec*) lParam; // not a window if (!hWnd) return TRUE; // not visible if (!IsWindowVisible(hWnd)) return TRUE; // no window title if (!GetWindowTextA(hWnd, (LPSTR)String, 255)) return TRUE; // no title match if (strcmp(String, to_find->title) != 0) return TRUE; to_find->hWnd = hWnd; return FALSE; } WMCTRLDLL_API void wmctrl_window_focus(unsigned long wid) { SetForegroundWindow((HWND) wid); } WMCTRLDLL_API unsigned long wmctrl_find_window(char* find_title) { myWinSpec to_find; sprintf_s(to_find.title, sizeof(to_find.title), "%s", find_title); to_find.hWnd = 0; EnumWindows(EnumWindowsProc, (LPARAM)&to_find); return (unsigned long) to_find.hWnd; }