html - How to change href attribute using JavaScript after opening the link in a new window?

Question

I have a link on my page

<a href="http://google.com" id="mylink" onclick="changeLink();" target="_blank">google</a>

And the goal is to follow this link (opening in a new tab) and change its attributes (on previous tab). I mean we open google.com in a new tab and if we look back on the link, it's refreshed.

I've tried this js code

function changeLink(){
    document.getElementById("mylink").href = "http://facebook.com";
    document.getElementById("mylink").innerHTML = "facebook";
    }

But it also changes the target of new opening tab. Instead of opening google it opens facebook in my example.

Is it possible to fix it?

Answer 1

Your onclick fires before the href so it will change before the page is opened, you need to make the function handle the window opening like so:

function changeLink() {
    var link = document.getElementById("mylink");

    window.open(
      link.href,
      '_blank'
    );

    link.innerHTML = "facebook";
    link.setAttribute('href', "http://facebook.com");

    return false;
}