ajax update seperate page when a button is clicked on a popup

Question

I created a content type that is used to display a list of videos hosted on brightcove. I have a module that is setting a cookie for the anonymous user when they watch one.

I created a module that will display the video that they clicked in a popup. Inside this popup window there is a button to go to the next video. When they clicked the video that launched the initial popup I can use jquery to change a div class to get a viewed icon to appear next to the video link no problem.

When the "next video" button is clicked I have it play the next video in the same popup. However, I would like to have the "video viewed" icon appear without a refresh on the originating page.

You can see this in action at http://www.lynda.com when you watch one of their videos. You click a video on the course list, a popup appears and you can click the next video button. A viewed icon will appear without refresh on the course list (not the popup).

How do I use ajax in such a way that when a button is clicked it updates a different page? In the pop-up I am passing a video ID as well as the drupal node id of the course the video belongs to.

Answer 1

If you are using JavaScript to open your new window, you can assign that window a name and refer to its parent (or refer to it from the parent, as well). One site that explains this is at http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/25388/Accessing-parent-window-from-child-window-or-vice

Answer 2

This answer was a little different than what I had in mind but since I was updating the cookie information when the Next video button was clicked to set the ID of the video in the cookie I used a js cookie listener found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5908504/jquery-cookie-monitor Whenever the cookie is updated I can then check it and mark the video as viewed with jquery. If anyone has another solution I would love to hear it.