ansaurus

Question

Ask whether the user is sure to leave the site (XHTML/JavaScript)

Answer 1

+1 A:

The browser takes care of displaying the confirm window. You need to return the string with the message that you want to ask. Also, you may want to use onbeforeunload for cross browser compatibility.

Pekka 2009-12-28 17:51:59

Answer 2

+4 A:

You can add an onbeforeunload event. Note that it can only return a text string to include in the dialog the browser will display when the event is called. You can't tweak the dialog beyond that, nor can you trigger your own confirm as you're trying to do.

I'd note that this is very, very annoying behaviour except in a few specific situations. Unless you're saving me from significant data loss with this, please don't do it.

ceejayoz 2009-12-28 17:52:44

Thank you very much! All answers were good and helpful - but I have to choose one as the best. ;) So I choose your one.

2009-12-28 21:25:39

Answer 3

+2 A:

You can only provide the text. The browser handles the dialog box (security reasons). Here is some code you can use:

window.onbeforeunload = function (e) {
    var e = e || window.event;
    var msg = 'Are you sure you want to leave?';

    // For IE and Firefox
    if (e) {
        e.returnValue = msg;
    }

    // For Safari / chrome
    return msg;
}

Try this out on different browsers, though. You'll notice the message should be constructed differently depending on the different browsers' dialog wording.

Here is what I use:

if (IsChrome) {
    return 'You were in the middle of editing. You will lose your changes if you leave this page';
} else {
    return 'You were in the middle of editing. Press OK to leave this page (you will lose your changes).';
}

Gabriel McAdams 2009-12-28 17:59:38

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

Ask whether the user is sure to leave the site (XHTML/JavaScript)

related questions