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Answer 1

+1 A:

This one for closing the tab

window.onbeforeunload = function (evt) {
 var message = 'Did you remember to download your form?';
if (typeof evt == 'undefined') {
 evt = window.event;

}
 if (evt ) {
   evt.returnValue = message;
 }

    return message;

}

and use onclick event for logout button.

   onClick="return confirm('Did you remember to download your form?');"

Hope this will work for u.

piemesons 2010-05-27 17:12:31

@piemesons - This works great! Thank you very much

JM4 2010-05-27 20:10:44

Yikes - only one issue, when they click the link to actually download the forms, the page thinks they are trying to leave and in turn present an error message to them!

JM4 2010-05-27 20:13:02

Also - I would like for one event or another to occur but not necessarily both. I.e. they hit 'logout' button and they are presented with the OnClick event, THEN the browser prompt. Any ideas?

JM4 2010-05-27 20:15:50

The `evt` object can tell you what was clicked (i.e. `evt.target` or `window.event.srcElement` depending on browser). So you could choose to do nothing in the case where they've clicked on the form.

Ryley 2010-05-28 18:24:31

Answer 2

A:

Pointy is right about browser close events - imagine if evil sites could prevent you from closing their windows?? So you cannot prevent them from closing your site, but you can do an alert.

As far as your logout button is concerned, that is much more straight-forward:

<a href="logout.html" onClick="return confirm('Did you remember to download your form?');">Logout</a>

Ryley 2010-05-27 17:16:21

I **thought** I was right, but it turns out that both Firefox and IE will honor the "beforeunload" convention even when the browser window is being closed. The user does have a choice to let it close, however.

Pointy 2010-05-27 17:22:56

Answer 3

A:

I think that this may be part of your problem:

else if(window.onbeforeunload) {
  window.onbeforeunload = unloadMess;
};

That test in the "if" statement will only be true if there's already a handler function. That test doesn't mean, "does the window object have an 'onbeforeunload' property?". It means, "is the 'onbeforeunload' property of the window currently not null?".

I think it'd be safe to just set "onbeforeunload" directly, for any browser.

Pointy 2010-05-27 17:27:07

Answer 4

A:

You cannot alert or things like that in onbeforeunload, you cannot simply return false to make the user not leave the page, as with other events like onclick. This would allow a site to make it impossible to leave it.

You can however just return a string, the browser then shows a confirm dialog including your string asking the user whether he really wants to leave.

Marian 2010-05-27 17:53:11

@Marian - I am not trying to prevent them from leaving, merely pointing out a script message and allowing them to select "yes or no"

JM4 2010-05-27 20:04:21

@JM4: I know, but if it was possible an evil site could do it. As the Yes/No case is a rather commonly required one, it was made possible using the trick with the string.

Marian 2010-05-27 20:47:01

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Prompt User before browser close?

Goal 1

Goal 2

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