Focus tab or window

Solution 1:

The following appears to work in IE8 and FF13:

<script type="text/javascript">
// Stupid script to force focus to an existing tab when the link is clicked.
// And yes, we do need to open it twice.
function openHelp(a) {
    var tab = window.open(a.href, a.target);
    tab.close();
    tab = window.open(a.href, a.target);
    return false;
}
</script>
<a href="help.html" target="help" onclick="return openHelp(this);">Help</a>

Solution 2:

The only solution I see, is to force the popup in a new window, since there doesn't seem to be a way to focus another tab. This solution also requires you to change the default Javascript security settings in Tools > Options > Content tab and click on the Advanced button next to Enable Javascript checkbox and check the middle box to allow focusing windows.

To force the use of a window rather than a tab, use win = window.open("http://www.google.com", "test" ,"modal=yes"); and then call win.focus(); whenever you feel like it.

EDIT: Actually forgot to mention the fact that this is FF only.

Solution 3:

See Mozilla's documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Code_snippets/Tabbed_browser.

  var wm = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1"]
                     .getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator);
  var browserEnumerator = wm.getEnumerator("navigator:browser");

  // Check each browser instance

  while (browserEnumerator.hasMoreElements()) {
    var browserWin = browserEnumerator.getNext();
    var tabbrowser = browserWin.gBrowser;

    // Check each tab of this browser instance
    var numTabs = tabbrowser.browsers.length;
    for (var index = 0; index < numTabs; index++) {
      var currentBrowser = tabbrowser.getBrowserAtIndex(index);
      if (/*some logic*/) {

        // For an example
        tabbrowser.selectedTab = tabbrowser.tabContainer.childNodes[index];

        // Focus *this* browser-window
        browserWin.focus();
        break;
      }
    }

Here is an easier event-driven approach - https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Listening_to_events_on_all_tabs.