windows.create()

Creates a new window.

When you create the window, you can:

  • Load one or more new tabs into the window.
  • Move a tab from an existing window into the new window.
  • Set the size and position of the window.
  • Create a "panel" style window, which in this context means a window without any of the normal browser UI (address bar, toolbar, etc.).
  • Set various properties of the window, such as whether it is focused or private.

This is an asynchronous function that returns a Promise.

Syntax

js

let creating = browser.windows.create(
  createData            // optional object
)

Parameters

createData Optional

object.

allowScriptsToClose Optional

boolean. When the window is opened, it will contain a single tab, or more than one tab if url is given and includes an array containing more than one URL. By default scripts running in these pages are not allowed to close their tab using window.close(). If you include allowScriptsToClose and set it to true, then this default behavior is changed, so scripts can close their tabs. Note that:

  • this only applies to the tabs that were opened when the window was created. If the user opens more tabs in this window, then scripts will not be able to close those new tabs.
  • if the URL(s) given in url point to extension pages (that is, they are pages included with this extension and loaded with the "moz-extension:" protocol) then scripts are by default allowed to close those tabs.
cookieStoreId Optional

integer. If present, specifies the CookieStoreId for all tabs that will be created when the window is opened.

focused Optional

boolean. If true, the new window will be focused. If false, the new window will be opened in the background and the currently focused window will stay focused. Defaults to true.

height Optional

integer. The height in pixels of the new window, including the frame. If not specified defaults to a natural height.

incognito Optional

boolean. Whether the new window should be an incognito (private) window. Note that if you specify incognito and tabId, the ID must refer to a private tab — that is, you can't move a non-private tab to a private window.

left Optional

integer. The number of pixels to position the new window from the left edge of the screen. If not specified, the new window is offset naturally from the last focused window. This value is ignored for panels. (In Firefox, this value currently is ignored for popups (bug 1271047) but can be set using browser.windows.update().)

state Optional

A windows.WindowState value. The initial state of the window. The minimized, maximized and, fullscreen states cannot be combined with left, top, width, or height.

tabId Optional

integer. If included, moves a tab of the specified ID from an existing window into the new window.

titlePreface Optional

string. Use this to add a string to the beginning of the browser window's title. Depending on the underlying operating system, this might not work on browser windows that don't have a title (such as about:blank in Firefox).

top Optional

integer. The number of pixels to position the new window from the top edge of the screen. If not specified, the new window is offset naturally from the last focused window. This value is ignored for panels. (In Firefox, this value currently is ignored for popups (bug 1271047) but can be set using browser.windows.update().)

type Optional

A windows.CreateType value. Specifies what type of browser window to create. Specify panel or popup here to open a window without any of the normal browser UI (address bar, toolbar, etc.).

url Optional

string or array of strings. A URL or array of URLs to open as tabs in the window. Fully-qualified URLs must include a scheme (i.e. http://www.google.com, not www.google.com). Relative URLs will be relative to the current page within the extension. Defaults to the New Tab Page.

width Optional

integer. The width in pixels of the new window, including the frame. If not specified defaults to a natural width.

Return value

A Promise that will be fulfilled with a windows.Window object containing the details of the new window. This Window object will always have its tabs property set, unlike the Window objects returned from windows.get() and similar APIs, which only contain tabs if the populate option is passed. If any error occurs, the promise will be rejected with an error message.

Examples

Open a window containing two tabs:

js

function onCreated(windowInfo) {
  console.log(`Created window: ${windowInfo.id}`);
}

function onError(error) {
  console.log(`Error: ${error}`);
}

browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener((tab) => {
  let creating = browser.windows.create({
    url: ["https://developer.mozilla.org",
          "https://addons.mozilla.org"]
  });
  creating.then(onCreated, onError);
});

Open a window when the user clicks a browser action, and move the currently active tab into it:

js

function onCreated(windowInfo) {
  console.log(`Created window: ${windowInfo.id}`);
}

function onError(error) {
  console.log(`Error: ${error}`);
}

browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener((tab) => {
  let creating = browser.windows.create({
    tabId: tab.id
  });
  creating.then(onCreated, onError);
});

Open a small panel-style window, and load a locally-packaged file into it:

js

function onCreated(windowInfo) {
  console.log(`Created window: ${windowInfo.id}`);
}

function onError(error) {
  console.log(`Error: ${error}`);
}

browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener((tab) => {

  let popupURL = browser.extension.getURL("popup/popup.html");

  let creating = browser.windows.create({
    url: popupURL,
    type: "popup",
    height: 200,
    width: 200
  });
  creating.then(onCreated, onError);

});

Example extensions

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

Note: This API is based on Chromium's chrome.windows API. This documentation is derived from windows.json in the Chromium code.

See also