Question

In this scenario:

• User enters some information into a textbox
• User clicks a button
• Server-side processing of the entered information takes place
• Depending on the result of that server-side processing, either a new window is to be opened, or a message is to be displayed on the current page (and no popup)

I cannot come up with an approach other than to use async: false in the jQuery ajax call, which is strongly discouraged:

Setting this option to false (and thus making the call no longer
asynchronous) is strongly discouraged, as it can cause the browser to
become unresponsive.

I’ve tried:

• having the call be async and in the callback handler, depending on what the server said, sometimes opening a new window – this gets blocked by popup blockers
• another idea, which I’ve not even bothered with due to its unpleasantness, is to always open a window, and it is this new window that calls the server, and sometimes closes itself (somehow updating text in the parent on its way out)

What I’ve settled on is what I’ve described above: in the click handler, do a synchronous server call, and if the server says to do so, open a new window. Popup blockers are happy with this, because the window opening is done in the click handler. But…

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Similar (but not duplicate, as I don’t always want to open a new window) questions that have not provided a nice solution:

• How can I open a new window using a URL that is generated inside the getScript callback function, and avoid pop-up blockers?
• (How) can I open the result of a form submission in a new window?

Answer 1

I tried out my ‘unpleasant’ idea: to always open a new window, and have that new window make the server call, closing itself if the results of the server call dictated that it was not required.

But that was pretty horrible, so I stuck with the synchronous call.

So for me, the answer to this question is no, you can’t avoid being synchronous in this situation.