Javascript,calling child window function from opener doesn't work

Question

I'm developing a web application that opens a popup using windows.open(..). I need to call a function on the opened window using the handle returned by "window.open", but I'm always getting the error message "addWindow.getMaskElements is not a function", as if it couldn't access the function declared on child window. This is the behavior in both IE and FF. My code looks like this:

function AddEmail(target,category)
{
    if(addWindow == null)
    {
        currentCategory = category;
        var left = getDialogPos(400,220)[0];
        var top =  getDialogPos(400,220)[1];
        addWindow = window.open("adicionar_email.htm",null,"height=220px, width=400px, status=no, resizable=no");
        addWindow.moveTo(left,top);
        addWindow.getMaskElements ();
    }
}

I've googled and read from different reliable sources and apparently this is supposed to work, however it doesn't. One more thing, the functions in child window are declared in a separate .js file that is included in the adicionar_email.htm file. Does this make a difference? It shouldn't.. So, if anyone has ran into a similar problem, or has any idea of what I'm doing wrong, please, reply to this message. Thanks in advance.

Kenia

Answer 1

The window creation is not a blocking operation; the script continues to execute while that window is opening and loading the HTML & javascript and parsing it.

If you were to add a link on your original page like this:

<a href="#" onclick="addWindow.getMaskElements();">Test</a>

You'd see it works. (I tried it just to be sure.)

**EDIT **

Someone else posted a workaround by calling an onload in the target document, here's another approach:

function AddEmail()
{

        if(addWindow == null) {
        addWindow = window.open("test2.html",null,"height=220px, width=400px, status=no, resizable=no");
        }

        if(!addWindow.myRemoteFunction) {
            setTimeout(AddEmail,1000);
        } else { addWindow.myRemoteFunction(); }
}

This keeps trying to call addWindow.myRemoteFunction every 1 second til it manages to sucessfully call it.