tabtalk

Simple, secure cross-origin communication between browser tabs

Table of contents

• Usage
• createTab
  • config
• TabTalk instance API
  • open
  • close
  • sendToChild
  • sendToChildren
  • sendToParent

Usage

import createTab from 'tabtalk';
 
const tabtalk = createTab({
  onChildCommunication(message) {
    console.log('message from child', message);
  },
  onChildRegister(childTab) {
    tabtalk.sendToChild(childTab.id, 'Hello my child!');
  },
  onRegister() {
    console.log('ready to go!');
  },
});
 
tabtalk.open({url: 'http://www.example.com'});

Messages are sent by postMessage, allowing for cross-origin usage (with the use of custom config properties), and the data in the message is encrypted with krip under the hood.

createTab

createTab([config: Object]): TabTalk

Creates a new TabTalk instance where the window it is executed in (itself) is the tab. The instance returned allows you to open children, and will automatically glean its parent if it was opened from another TabTalk instance.

config

createTab optionally accepts a config object which has the following shape:

{
  // custom key to be used by krip for encryption / decription
  // HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
  encryptionKey: string,
 
  // called when child closes
  onChildClose: (child: TabTalk) => void,
 
  // called when child sends message to self
  onChildCommunication: (message: any, eventTime: number) => void,
 
  // called when child registers with parent
  onChildRegister: (child: TabTalk) => void,
 
  // called when self is closed
  onClose: () => void,
 
  // called when parent is closed
  onParentClose: () => void,
 
  // called when parent sends message to self
  onParentCommunication: (message: any, eventTime: number) => void,
 
  // called when self registers
  onRegister: (self: TabTalk) => void,
 
  // the origin to use for cross-tab validation
  origin: string = window.origin || document.domain || '*',
 
  // the delay to wait when a tab doesn't check in but has already checked in
  pingCheckinBuffer: number = 5000,
 
  // the delay to wait before the next check if tab is checking in
  pingInterval: number = 5000,
 
  // the delay to wait when a tab doesn't check in and has never checked in
  registrationBuffer: number = 10000,
 
  // should the tab be removed as a child when closed
  removeOnClose: boolean = false,
}

TabTalk instance API

open

Opens a new child TabTalk instance and stores it as a child in the opener's TabTalk instance. Resolves the child instance.

open(options: Object): Promise<TabTalk>

Example:

const openChild = async config => {
  const child = await tabtalk.open({
    config,
    url: 'http://www.example.com/',
  });
 
  return child;
};

open() accepts the following options:

{
  // the config to pass through to createTab for the child
  config: Object = self.config,
 
  // the destination to open
  url: string,
 
  // any windowFeatures to apply to the opened window
  windowFeatures: string,
}

For more information on windowFeatures, see the MDN documentation.

close

Closes the TabTalk instance, or if an ID is passed then closes that matching child TabTalk instance.

close([id: string]) => void

Example:

tabtalk.close(); // closes self
 
tabtalk.close(child.id); // closes specific child

sendToChild

Send data to a specific child. The promise resolved is empty, it's mainly to have control flow over a successful message sent.

sendToChild(id: string, data: any): Promise<null>

Example:

tabtalk.sendToChild(child.id, {
  message: 'Special message',
  total: 1234.56,
});

NOTE: Data can be anything that is serializable by JSON.stringify.

sendToChildren

Send data to all children. The promise resolved is empty, it's mainly to have control flow over a successful message sent.

sendToChildren(data: any): Promise<null>

Example:

tabtalk.sendToChildren({
  message: 'Special message',
  total: 1234.56,
});

NOTE: Data can be anything that is serializable by JSON.stringify.

sendToParent

Send data to the parent. The promise resolved is empty, it's mainly to have control flow over a successful message sent.

sendToParent(data: any): Promise<null>

Example:

tabtalk.sendToParent({
  message: 'Special message',
  total: 1234.56,
});

NOTE: Data can be anything that is serializable by JSON.stringify.

Support

Support is mainly driven by krip support, as postMessage works correctly back to IE8.

• Chrome 37+
• Firefox 34+
• Edge (all versions)
• Opera 24+
• IE 11+
  • Requires polyfills for Promise, TextDecoder, and TextEncoder
• Safari 7.1+
• iOS 8+
• Android 5+

Development

Standard stuff, clone the repo and npm install dependencies. The npm scripts available:

• build => run rollup to build browser and node versions
  • standard versions to top-level directory, minified versions to dist folder
• clean:dist => run rimraf on dist folder
• dev => run webpack dev server to run example app / playground
• dist => run clean:dist, build
• lint => run eslint against all files in the src folder
• lint:fix => run lint, fixing issues when possible
• prepublish => runs prepublish:compile when publishing
• prepublish:compile => run lint, test:coverage, build
• start => run dev
• test => run AVA test functions with NODE_ENV=test
• test:coverage => run test but with nyc for coverage checker
• test:watch => run test, but with persistent watcher