[javascript] browser sessionStorage. share between tabs?

I have some values in my site which I want to clear when the browser is closed. I chose sessionStorage to store those values. When tab is closed they are indeed cleared, and kept if the user presses f5; But if the user opens some link in a different tab these values are unavailable.

How I can share sessionStorage values between all browser tabs with my application?

The use case: put a value in some storage, keep that value accessible in all browser tabs and clear it if all tabs are closed.

if (!sessionStorage.getItem(key)) {
    sessionStorage.setItem(key, defaultValue)
}

Actually looking at other areas, if you open with _blank it keeps the sessionStorage as long as you're opening the tab when the parent is open:

In this link, there's a good jsfiddle to test it. sessionStorage on new window isn't empty, when following a link with target="_blank"

My solution to not having sessionStorage transferable over tabs was to create a localProfile and bang off this variable. If this variable is set but my sessionStorage variables arent go ahead and reinitialize them. When user logs out window closes destroy this localStorage variable

Here is a solution to prevent session shearing between browser tabs for a java application. This will work for IE (JSP/Servlet)

1. In your first JSP page, onload event call a servlet (ajex call) to setup a "window.title" and event tracker in the session(just a integer variable to be set as 0 for first time)
2. Make sure none of the other pages set a window.title
3. All pages (including the first page) add a java script to check the window title once the page load is complete. if the title is not found then close the current page/tab(make sure to undo the "window.unload" function when this occurs)
4. Set page window.onunload java script event(for all pages) to capture the page refresh event, if a page has been refreshed call the servlet to reset the event tracker.

1)first page JS

BODY onload="javascript:initPageLoad()"

function initPageLoad() {
    var xmlhttp;

    if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
        // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
        xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    } else {
        // code for IE6, IE5
        xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
    }

    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200) {                           var serverResponse = xmlhttp.responseText;
            top.document.title=serverResponse;
        }
    };
                xmlhttp.open("GET", 'data.do', true);
    xmlhttp.send();

}

2)common JS for all pages

window.onunload = function() {
    var xmlhttp;
    if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
        // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
        xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    } else {
        // code for IE6, IE5
        xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
    }
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200) {             
            var serverResponse = xmlhttp.responseText;              
        }
    };

    xmlhttp.open("GET", 'data.do?reset=true', true);
    xmlhttp.send();
}

var readyStateCheckInterval = setInterval(function() {
if (document.readyState === "complete") {
    init();
    clearInterval(readyStateCheckInterval);
}}, 10);
function init(){ 
  if(document.title==""){   
  window.onunload=function() {};
  window.open('', '_self', ''); window.close();
  }
 }

3)web.xml - servlet mapping

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>myAction</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/data.do</url-pattern>     
</servlet-mapping>  
<servlet>
<servlet-name>myAction</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>xx.xxx.MyAction</servlet-class>
</servlet>

4)servlet code

public class MyAction extends HttpServlet {
 public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
        throws IOException {
    Integer sessionCount = (Integer) request.getSession().getAttribute(
            "sessionCount");
    PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
    Boolean reset = Boolean.valueOf(request.getParameter("reset"));
    if (reset)
        sessionCount = new Integer(0);
    else {
        if (sessionCount == null || sessionCount == 0) {
            out.println("hello Title");
            sessionCount = new Integer(0);
        }
                          sessionCount++;
    }
    request.getSession().setAttribute("sessionCount", sessionCount);
    // Set standard HTTP/1.1 no-cache headers.
    response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "private, no-store, no-cache, must-                      revalidate");
    // Set standard HTTP/1.0 no-cache header.
    response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
} 
  }

Using sessionStorage for this is not possible.

From the MDN Docs

Opening a page in a new tab or window will cause a new session to be initiated.

That means that you can't share between tabs, for this you should use localStorage

1. You can just use localStorage and remember the date it was first created in session cookie. When localStorage "session" is older than the value of cookie then you may clear the localStorage

   Cons of this is that someone can still read the data after the browser is closed so it's not a good solution if your data is private and confidental.

2. You can store your data to localStorage for a couple of seconds and add event listener for a storage event. This way you will know when any of the tabs wrote something to the localStorage and you can copy its content to the sessionStorage, then just clear the localStorage