CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsurlbrowser
Rajesh Omanakuttan
Rajesh Omanakuttan

Reputation: 6928

Detecting a URL is open in the browser or not - Rails project

In my application, there is a custom requirement to detect whether a URL is open in the browser, (i.e. it could be in another tab, another window etc.). Is there a way to detect the same?

It can be in a rails way or using client side scripts.

I'm not sure its a good question or not.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 102

Answers (1)

Richard Peck
Richard Peck

Reputation: 76784

The only contribution I could make would be about how it could work:

Requests

Because Rails works on requests, I would suggest the only way to "know" whether a certain URL is "open" is to use a perpetual connection (WebSocket or long-polling)

By using a websocket, or long-polling, you'd have a constant reminder of who's requesting your controller actions, thus providing you with information on which are open

Connection

If you're using websocket or long-polling technology, you could do it like this:

#app/controllers/your_controller.rb
def your_action
    #can accept xhr requests 
    respond_to do |format|
        format.html
        format.js { render nothing #xhr request}
    end
end

#app/assets/application.js
if (!!window.EventSource) {
    var source = new EventSource(window.location);
}

source.addEventListener('message', function(e) {
   console.log(e.data);
}, false);

Good tutorial here

This will continually request the page you're on with SSE's (essentially using long-polling), thus allowing you to see if the action is open

This is super sketchy, but hopefully it will give you some ideas

Upvotes: 1

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