Lightning component included in tab

Question

I'd like to display a "header" for those instances where my Lightning component is not displayed in a tab, but directly on the page. Is there a way to determine if a Lightning component is being displayed in a tab?

Answer 1

Let me offer you another approach.

Instead of trying to figure out where a component is dropped, think about exposing a design attribute on your component that will allow users to show or hide the header manually when they manipulate it in the App Builder.

demoComponent.cmp

<aura:component implements="flexipage:availableForAllPageTypes" access="global" >

    <aura:attribute name="showHeader" type="boolean" />

    <aura:if isTrue="{!v.showHeader}">
        <h1>This is a header</h1>
    </aura:if>

    <div>Something else</div>

</aura:component>

demoComponent.design

<design:component>
    <design:attribute name="showHeader" label="Show Header?" default="false"/>
</design:component>

The above code will result in Show Header? property being available to a user in the Lightning App Builder:

Answer 2

So in layman's term, you want to determine what is the parent of your child component.

No, This is not possible and this should never be possible as this contains a great security risk. Imagine any rogue app exchange application reading the parent's component data(in your case tabs) and doing the malicious operation.

The aura framework will never have a way for you to get the parent component. That breaks encapsulation.

That being said, why should a component behave differently based on where its dropped? The component should expose a few properties which parent can fill in and change behavior if needed.