chrome/common/extensions/docs/static/windows.html

<div id="pageData-name" class="pageData">Windows</div>

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<p id="classSummary">
Use the <code>chrome.windows</code> module
to interact with browser windows.
You can use this module to
create, modify, and rearrange windows in the browser.
</p>

<img src="images/windows.png"
     width="256" height="76" alt="Two windows, each with one tab" />

<h2 id="manifest">Manifest</h2>
<p>
To use the windows API,
you must declare the "tabs" permission
in <a href="manifest.html">manifest.json</a>.
(No, that isn't a typo &mdash;
the window and tabs modules interact so closely we
decided to just share one permission between them.)
For example:
</p>

<pre>{
  "name": "My extension",
  ...
  <b>"permissions": ["tabs"]</b>,
  ...
}</pre>

<h2 id="current-window">The current window</h2>

<p>Many functions in the extension system
take an optional <var>windowId</var> parameter,
which defaults to the current window.
</p>

<p>The <em>current window</em> is the window that
contains the code that is currently executing.
It's important to realize that this can be
different from the topmost or focused window.
</p>

<p>For example, say an extension
creates a few tabs or windows from a single HTML file,
and that the HTML file
contains a call to
<a href="tabs.html#method-getSelected">chrome.tabs.getSelected</a>.
The current window is the window that contains the page that made
the call, no matter what the topmost window is.
</p>

<p>In the case of the <a href="background_pages.html">background page</a>,
the value of the current window falls back to the last active window. Under some
circumstances, there may be no current window for background pages.
</p>

<h2 id="examples"> Examples </h2>

<p>
You can find simple examples of using the windows module in the
<a href="http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/common/extensions/docs/examples/api/windows/">examples/api/windows</a>
directory.
Another example is in the
<a href="http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/common/extensions/docs/examples/api/tabs/inspector/tabs_api.html?content-type=text/plain">tabs_api.html</a> file
of the
<a href="http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/common/extensions/docs/examples/api/tabs/inspector/">inspector</a>
example.
For other examples and for help in viewing the source code, see
<a href="samples.html">Samples</a>.
</p>

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