While creating a Cmi course launch Simulator, I run into the need to open up a new window from asp.net code behide, instead of simply doing a Response.Redirect, which will just transfer the browser window to the target AU entry window, and the window where Cmi Simulator launched the course will be lost.

After reading posts here and there, I learned there were three possible ways to achieve what I needed and I picked the one that best suit me to implement in the end solution.

Soution 1: Simply open a new tab to display AU Entry page

On the CmiSimulator.aspx, I had a server-side button called btnLaunchCourse, when the button is clicked, it simply grabs the

LaunchUrl on the page and does a response.Redirect to the website and page defined in the LaunchUrl. To make sure the target page is displayed in a different tab on the browser, just added the OnClickClick attribute like below:

Text=”Launch Course” CssClass=”submitButton” OnClientClick=”form1.target=’_blank';” />

The code-behind OnLaunchCourse has only this line of code:

Response.Redirect(LaunchUrl);

Here Form1 is the id of the aspnet form on the page. If the page is embedded in a master page, the form tag is located in the master page.

Solution 2: Open a pop-up window

Keep the button html code as it is,

Text=”Launch Course” CssClass=”submitButton” />

And register javascript to open a new window from code-behind “OnLaunchCourse”:

protected void OnLaunchCourse(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

//Response.Redirect(txtLaunchUrl.Text);
string url = txtLaunchUrl.Text;
string newWindow = “window.open(‘” + url + “‘,’_blank’,’height=700,width=800,status=yes, toolbar=no, menubar=no,location=no,scrollbar=yes, resizable=yes, titlebar=no’);”;
ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(this, typeof(string), “OpenWindow”, newWindow, true);

}

Solution 3: Extension method

public static void Redirect(this HttpResponse response, string url, string target, string windowFeatures)
{
//credit to this posting at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/104601/asp-net-response-redirect-to-new-window

//windowFeatures example:

windowFeatures=”directories=no,toolbar=no,menubar=no,location=yes,status=no,resizable=yes,width=800,height=600″;
if ((String.IsNullOrEmpty(target) || target.Equals(“_self”, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) &&

String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))
{
response.Redirect(url);
}
else
{
Page page = (Page)HttpContext.Current.Handler;

if (page == null)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException(“Cannot redirect to new window outside Page context.”);
}
url = page.ResolveClientUrl(url);

string script;
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))
{
script = @”window.open(“”{0}””, “”{1}””, “”{2}””);”;

}
else
{
script = @”window.open(“”{0}””, “”{1}””);”;
}
script = String.Format(script, url, target, windowFeatures);
ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(page, typeof(Page), “Redirect”, script, true);
}
}

At the end, the most elegant solution is the extension method and that was implemented in my final solution. I thank the author of this extension method, Tančev Saša, you’re my hero of the day!