Is there a way to detect if a browser window is not currently active?
I would use jQuery because then all you have to do is this:
$(window).blur(function(){
//your code here
});
$(window).focus(function(){
//your code
});
Or at least it worked for me.
Since originally writing this answer, a new specification has reached recommendation status thanks to the W3C. The Page Visibility API (on MDN) now allows us to more accurately detect when a page is hidden to the user.
document.addEventListener("visibilitychange", onchange);
Current browser support:
- Chrome 13+
- Internet Explorer 10+
- Firefox 10+
- Opera 12.10+ [read notes]
The following code falls back to the less reliable blur/focus method in incompatible browsers:
(function() {
var hidden = "hidden";
// Standards:
if (hidden in document)
document.addEventListener("visibilitychange", onchange);
else if ((hidden = "mozHidden") in document)
document.addEventListener("mozvisibilitychange", onchange);
else if ((hidden = "webkitHidden") in document)
document.addEventListener("webkitvisibilitychange", onchange);
else if ((hidden = "msHidden") in document)
document.addEventListener("msvisibilitychange", onchange);
// IE 9 and lower:
else if ("onfocusin" in document)
document.onfocusin = document.onfocusout = onchange;
// All others:
else
window.onpageshow = window.onpagehide
= window.onfocus = window.onblur = onchange;
function onchange (evt) {
var v = "visible", h = "hidden",
evtMap = {
focus:v, focusin:v, pageshow:v, blur:h, focusout:h, pagehide:h
};
evt = evt || window.event;
if (evt.type in evtMap)
document.body.className = evtMap[evt.type];
else
document.body.className = this[hidden] ? "hidden" : "visible";
}
// set the initial state (but only if browser supports the Page Visibility API)
if( document[hidden] !== undefined )
onchange({type: document[hidden] ? "blur" : "focus"});
})();
onfocusin and onfocusout are required for IE 9 and lower, while all others make use of onfocus and onblur, except for iOS, which uses onpageshow and onpagehide.
There are 3 typical methods used to determine if the user can see the HTML page, however none of them work perfectly:
The W3C Page Visibility API is supposed to do this (supported since: Firefox 10, MSIE 10, Chrome 13). However, this API only raises events when the browser tab is fully overriden (e.g. when the user changes from one tab to another one). The API does not raise events when the visibility cannot be determined with 100% accuracy (e.g. Alt+Tab to switch to another application).
Using focus/blur based methods gives you a lot of false positive. For example, if the user displays a smaller window on top of the browser window, the browser window will lose the focus (
onblurraised) but the user is still able to see it (so it still need to be refreshed). See also http://javascript.info/tutorial/focusRelying on user activity (mouse move, clicks, key typed) gives you a lot of false positive too. Think about the same case as above, or a user watching a video.
In order to improve the imperfect behaviors described above, I use a combination of the 3 methods: W3C Visibility API, then focus/blur and user activity methods in order to reduce the false positive rate. This allows to manage the following events:
- Changing browser tab to another one (100% accuracy, thanks to the W3C Page Visibility API)
- Page potentially hidden by another window, e.g. due to Alt+Tab (probabilistic = not 100% accurate)
- User attention potentially not focused on the HTML page (probabilistic = not 100% accurate)
This is how it works: when the document lose the focus, the user activity (such as mouse move) on the document is monitored in order to determine if the window is visible or not. The page visibility probability is inversely proportional to the time of the last user activity on the page: if the user makes no activity on the document for a long time, the page is most probably not visible. The code below mimics the W3C Page Visibility API: it behaves the same way but has a small false positive rate. It has the advantage to be multibrowser (tested on Firefox 5, Firefox 10, MSIE 9, MSIE 7, Safari 5, Chrome 9).
<div id="x"></div>
<script>
/**
Registers the handler to the event for the given object.
@param obj the object which will raise the event
@param evType the event type: click, keypress, mouseover, ...
@param fn the event handler function
@param isCapturing set the event mode (true = capturing event, false = bubbling event)
@return true if the event handler has been attached correctly
*/
function addEvent(obj, evType, fn, isCapturing){
if (isCapturing==null) isCapturing=false;
if (obj.addEventListener){
// Firefox
obj.addEventListener(evType, fn, isCapturing);
return true;
} else if (obj.attachEvent){
// MSIE
var r = obj.attachEvent('on'+evType, fn);
return r;
} else {
return false;
}
}
// register to the potential page visibility change
addEvent(document, "potentialvisilitychange", function(event) {
document.getElementById("x").innerHTML+="potentialVisilityChange: potentialHidden="+document.potentialHidden+", document.potentiallyHiddenSince="+document.potentiallyHiddenSince+" s<br>";
});
// register to the W3C Page Visibility API
var hidden=null;
var visibilityChange=null;
if (typeof document.mozHidden !== "undefined") {
hidden="mozHidden";
visibilityChange="mozvisibilitychange";
} else if (typeof document.msHidden !== "undefined") {
hidden="msHidden";
visibilityChange="msvisibilitychange";
} else if (typeof document.webkitHidden!=="undefined") {
hidden="webkitHidden";
visibilityChange="webkitvisibilitychange";
} else if (typeof document.hidden !=="hidden") {
hidden="hidden";
visibilityChange="visibilitychange";
}
if (hidden!=null && visibilityChange!=null) {
addEvent(document, visibilityChange, function(event) {
document.getElementById("x").innerHTML+=visibilityChange+": "+hidden+"="+document[hidden]+"<br>";
});
}
var potentialPageVisibility = {
pageVisibilityChangeThreshold:3*3600, // in seconds
init:function() {
function setAsNotHidden() {
var dispatchEventRequired=document.potentialHidden;
document.potentialHidden=false;
document.potentiallyHiddenSince=0;
if (dispatchEventRequired) dispatchPageVisibilityChangeEvent();
}
function initPotentiallyHiddenDetection() {
if (!hasFocusLocal) {
// the window does not has the focus => check for user activity in the window
lastActionDate=new Date();
if (timeoutHandler!=null) {
clearTimeout(timeoutHandler);
}
timeoutHandler = setTimeout(checkPageVisibility, potentialPageVisibility.pageVisibilityChangeThreshold*1000+100); // +100 ms to avoid rounding issues under Firefox
}
}
function dispatchPageVisibilityChangeEvent() {
unifiedVisilityChangeEventDispatchAllowed=false;
var evt = document.createEvent("Event");
evt.initEvent("potentialvisilitychange", true, true);
document.dispatchEvent(evt);
}
function checkPageVisibility() {
var potentialHiddenDuration=(hasFocusLocal || lastActionDate==null?0:Math.floor((new Date().getTime()-lastActionDate.getTime())/1000));
document.potentiallyHiddenSince=potentialHiddenDuration;
if (potentialHiddenDuration>=potentialPageVisibility.pageVisibilityChangeThreshold && !document.potentialHidden) {
// page visibility change threshold raiched => raise the even
document.potentialHidden=true;
dispatchPageVisibilityChangeEvent();
}
}
var lastActionDate=null;
var hasFocusLocal=true;
var hasMouseOver=true;
document.potentialHidden=false;
document.potentiallyHiddenSince=0;
var timeoutHandler = null;
addEvent(document, "pageshow", function(event) {
document.getElementById("x").innerHTML+="pageshow/doc:<br>";
});
addEvent(document, "pagehide", function(event) {
document.getElementById("x").innerHTML+="pagehide/doc:<br>";
});
addEvent(window, "pageshow", function(event) {
document.getElementById("x").innerHTML+="pageshow/win:<br>"; // raised when the page first shows
});
addEvent(window, "pagehide", function(event) {
document.getElementById("x").innerHTML+="pagehide/win:<br>"; // not raised
});
addEvent(document, "mousemove", function(event) {
lastActionDate=new Date();
});
addEvent(document, "mouseover", function(event) {
hasMouseOver=true;
setAsNotHidden();
});
addEvent(document, "mouseout", function(event) {
hasMouseOver=false;
initPotentiallyHiddenDetection();
});
addEvent(window, "blur", function(event) {
hasFocusLocal=false;
initPotentiallyHiddenDetection();
});
addEvent(window, "focus", function(event) {
hasFocusLocal=true;
setAsNotHidden();
});
setAsNotHidden();
}
}
potentialPageVisibility.pageVisibilityChangeThreshold=4; // 4 seconds for testing
potentialPageVisibility.init();
</script>
Since there is currently no working cross-browser solution without false positive, you should better think twice about disabling periodical activity on your web site.