Here's a system that uses broadcast channels for cross tab comms. It also assigns a unique ID per tab and manages the discovery of already opened tabs, for new tabs. Finally, using the ID as a stable index, it allows the user to rename their tabs. Tab closing events are handled via polling as well (unload events are unreliable).
This plugs into redux via the callbacks in the constructor. These are onNewTab
, onDestroyTab
, onRenameTab
in this example.
import { setTabs } from './redux/commonSlice';
import { store } from './redux/store';
const promiseTimeout = (ms, promise) => {
let id;
let timeout = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
id = setTimeout(() => {
reject('Timed out in ' + ms + 'ms.');
}, ms)
})
return Promise.race([
promise,
timeout
]).then((result) => {
clearTimeout(id);
return result;
})
};
// Promise that can be resolved/rejected outside of its constructor. Like a signal an async event has occured.
class DeferredPromise {
constructor() {
this._promise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
// assign the resolve and reject functions to `this`
// making them usable on the class instance
this.resolve = resolve;
this.reject = reject;
});
// bind `then` and `catch` to implement the same interface as Promise
this.then = this._promise.then.bind(this._promise);
this.catch = this._promise.catch.bind(this._promise);
this.finally = this._promise.finally.bind(this._promise);
this[Symbol.toStringTag] = 'Promise';
}
}
class TabManager {
tabCreateCallback = undefined;
tabDestroyCallback = undefined;
tabRenameCallback = undefined;
constructor(onNewTab, onDestroyTab, onRenameTab) {
this.tabCreateCallback = onNewTab.bind(this);
this.tabDestroyCallback = onDestroyTab.bind(this);
this.tabRenameCallback = onRenameTab.bind(this);
// creation time gives us a total ordering of open tabs, also acts as a tab ID
this.creationEpoch = Date.now();
this.channel = new BroadcastChannel("TabManager");
this.channel.onmessage = this.onMessage.bind(this);
// our current tab (self) counts too
this.tabs = [];
this.tabNames = {};
// start heartbeats. We check liveness like this as there is _no_ stable browser API for tab close.
// onbeforeunload is not reliable in all situations.
this.heartbeatPromises = {};
this.heartbeatIntervalMs = 1000;
setTimeout(this.doHeartbeat.bind(this), this.heartbeatIntervalMs);
}
doComputeNames() {
for (let i = 0; i < this.tabs.length; i++) {
const tab = this.tabs[i];
const name = this.tabNames[tab];
const defaultName = `Tab ${i + 1}`;
if (!name) {
this.tabNames[tab] = defaultName;
if (this.tabRenameCallback) {
this.tabRenameCallback(tab, name);
}
// if it's a default pattern but wrong inde value, rename it
} else if (name && this.isDefaultName(name) && name !== defaultName) {
this.tabNames[tab] = defaultName;
if (this.tabRenameCallback) {
this.tabRenameCallback(tab, name);
}
}
}
}
doHeartbeat() {
for (let tab of this.tabs) {
if (tab === this.creationEpoch) {
continue;
}
this.channel.postMessage({ type: "heartbeat_request", value: tab });
const heartbeatReply = new DeferredPromise();
heartbeatReply.catch(e => { });
// use only a fraction of poll interval to ensure timeouts occur before poll. Prevents spiral of death.
let heartbeatReplyWithTimeout = promiseTimeout(this.heartbeatIntervalMs / 3, heartbeatReply);
// destroy tab if heartbeat times out
heartbeatReplyWithTimeout.then(success => {
delete this.heartbeatPromises[tab];
}).catch(error => {
delete this.heartbeatPromises[tab];
this.tabs = this.tabs.filter(id => id !== tab);
this.tabs.sort();
this.doComputeNames();
if (this.tabDestroyCallback) {
this.tabDestroyCallback(tab);
}
});
this.heartbeatPromises[tab] = heartbeatReply;
}
// re-schedule to loop again
setTimeout(this.doHeartbeat.bind(this), this.heartbeatIntervalMs);
}
doInitialize() {
this.tabs = [this.creationEpoch];
this.doComputeNames();
if (this.tabCreateCallback) {
this.tabCreateCallback(this.creationEpoch);
}
this.channel.postMessage({ type: "creation", value: this.creationEpoch });
}
onMessage(event) {
if (event.data.type == "creation") {
const newTabId = event.data.value;
// add the new tab
if (!this.tabs.includes(newTabId)) {
this.tabs.push(newTabId);
this.tabs.sort();
this.doComputeNames();
if (this.tabCreateCallback) {
this.tabCreateCallback(newTabId);
}
}
// send all of the tabs we know about to it
this.channel.postMessage({ type: "syncnew", value: this.tabs });
// those tabs we just sent might already have custom names, lets send the older rename requests
// which would have had to have occured. I.E. lets replay forward time and sync the states of ours to theirs.
for (let tab of this.tabs) {
const name = this.tabNames[tab];
if (name && !this.isDefaultName(name)) {
this.notifyTabRename(tab, name);
}
}
} else if (event.data.type == "syncnew") {
let newTabs = [];
// just got a list of new tabs add them if we down't know about them
for (let id of event.data.value) {
if (!this.tabs.includes(id)) {
newTabs.push(id);
}
}
// merge the lists and notify of only newly discovered
if (newTabs.length) {
this.tabs = this.tabs.concat(newTabs);
this.tabs.sort();
this.doComputeNames();
for (let id of newTabs) {
if (this.tabCreateCallback) {
this.tabCreateCallback(id);
}
}
}
} else if (event.data.type == "heartbeat_request") {
// it's for us, say hi back
if (event.data.value === this.creationEpoch) {
this.channel.postMessage({ type: "heartbeat_reply", value: this.creationEpoch });
}
} else if (event.data.type == "heartbeat_reply") {
// got a reply, cool resolve the heartbeat
if (this.heartbeatPromises[event.data.value]) {
// try catch since this is racy, entry may have timed out after this check passed
try {
this.heartbeatPromises[event.data.value].resolve();
} catch {
}
}
} else if (event.data.type == "rename") {
// someone renamed themselves, lets update our record
const { id, name } = event.data.value;
if (this.tabs.includes(id)) {
this.tabNames[id] = name;
// first original (potentially illegal) rename callback first
if (this.tabRenameCallback) {
this.tabRenameCallback(id, name);
}
// force tab numbers back to consistent
this.doComputeNames();
}
}
}
setTabName(id, name) {
if (this.tabs.includes(id)) {
this.tabNames[id] = name;
this.notifyTabRename(id, name);
if (this.tabRenameCallback) {
this.tabRenameCallback(id, name);
}
// force tab numbers back to consistent
this.doComputeNames();
}
}
notifyTabRename(id, name) {
this.channel.postMessage({ type: "rename", value: { id, name } });
}
isDefaultName(name) {
return name.match(/Tab [0-9]+/)
}
getMyTabId() {
return this.creationEpoch;
}
getMyTabIndex() {
return this.tabs.findIndex(tab => tab === this.creationEpoch);
}
isMyTab(id) {
return id === this.creationEpoch;
}
getAllTabs() {
return this.tabs.map((tab, idx) => {
return { id: tab, index: idx, name: this.tabNames[tab] ?? "" };
}, this);
}
}
function onDestroyTab(id) {
store.dispatch(setTabs(this.getAllTabs()));
console.log(`Tab ${id} destroyed`);
}
function onNewTab(id) {
store.dispatch(setTabs(this.getAllTabs()));
console.log(`Tab ${id} created`);
}
function onRenameTab(id, name) {
store.dispatch(setTabs(this.getAllTabs()));
console.log(`Tab ${id} renamed to ${name}`);
}
const TabManager = new TabManager(onNewTab, onDestroyTab, onRenameTab);
export default TabManager;
Initialize it on page load
window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function (event) {
TabManager.doInitialize();
});
Access any of the methods on the static object at any time. Note that you can get rename events out of order from create / destroy. This could be resolved, but it wasn't important for me.