Implementing a Tab on Firefox Extension Upon Window Load

I have a requirement to add a tab whenever a new Firefox window is loaded for my bootstrap extension. Below is the code snippet I am using:

var WindowListener = {
    setupBrowserUI: function(window) {
        window.gBrowser.selectedTab=window.gBrowser.addTab("http://google.com");
    },
    tearDownBrowserUI: function(window) {
    },
    // nsIWindowMediatorListener functions
    onOpenWindow: function(xulWindow) {
        var domWindow = xulWindow.QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIInterfaceRequestor)
                                 .getInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIDOMWindow);
        // Wait for it to finish loading
        domWindow.addEventListener("load", function listener() {
            domWindow.removeEventListener("load", listener, false);
            // If this is a browser window then setup its UI      
            if (domWindow.document.documentElement.getAttribute("windowtype")=="navigator:browser") domWindow.gBrowser.selectedTab=domWindow.gBrowser.addTab("http://google.com");
        }, false);
    },
    onCloseWindow: function(xulWindow) {
    },
    onWindowTitleChange: function(xulWindow, newTitle) {
    }
};

let wm = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1"].
       getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator);
// Wait for any new browser windows to open
wm.addListener(WindowListener);

You can experiment with this code in Scratchpad.

The onOpenWindow method contains the logic to open a tab in a new window, but it seems to execute before the window is fully loaded, causing issues with adding tabs in this state. This contradicts the MDN code that suggests "Wait for it to finish loading".

While setting a timeout using the setTimeout function does solve the problem, it may not be the most elegant solution.

domWindow.setTimeout(function(){domWindow.gBrowser.selectedTab=domWindow.gBrowser.addTab("http://google.com");},1000);

Is there a way to add a tab for new Firefox windows only after the window has completely loaded without relying on setTimeouts?

javascriptfirefoxfirefox-addon

Answer №1

Personally, I recommend using the setTimeout(..., 0) trick. It's proven to be a dependable choice and is frequently employed in Firefox's own codebase :p

if (domWindow.gBrowser) {
  setTimeout(function() {
    domWindow.gBrowser.selectedTab =
      domWindow.gBrowser.addTab("http://google.com");
  }, 0);
}

Answer №2

There is something really strange going on here that I just can't wrap my head around. Starting from this line:

if (domWindow.document.documentElement.getAttribute("windowtype")=="navigator:browser") domWindow.gBrowser.selectedTab=domWindow.gBrowser.addTab("");

We need to remove the domWindow.gBrowser.selectedTab = part and make it look like this instead:

if (domWindow.document.documentElement.getAttribute("windowtype")=="navigator:browser")  { 
     domWindow.gBrowser.addTab("http://google.com");
}

This code successfully loads the URL, but it doesn't select the tab. So, I had a completely fresh idea of trying out something new, only to be met with failure:

if (domWindow.document.documentElement.getAttribute("windowtype")=="navigator:browser")  { 
     var tab = domWindow.gBrowser.addTab("http://google.com");
}

As soon as I added that var tab = at the beginning, everything fell apart. My plan was to add this next line: 

domWindow.gBrowser.selectedTab = tab

But even that didn't work: loadOneTab has an inBackground parameter, which supposedly should focus the tab if set to false:

if (domWindow.document.documentElement.getAttribute("windowtype")=="navigator:browser")  { 
     domWindow.gBrowser.loadOneTab("http://google.com", {inBackground:false});
}

I am absolutely stumped because this code won't load the URL properly, although it does manage to focus the tab. If you switch inBackground to true, the URL loads but the tab stays unfocused. It's all very bizarre...

I'm sharing this in the hopes that others might pinpoint where things are going wrong. Perhaps we need to file a report on bugzilla.

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