Alert user when they hit the browser back button - with good reson

Question

I know this borders on the taboo here, and please don't reply with "you should never do this etc" I have a very long form in a wizard, some users are too used to using the browsers back and forward buttons that they use those instead of the "Back" and "Next" buttons on the form wizard. If they hit the browsers back button they lose all of their form data which is a pain in the ass, since form is so long. Is it possible to display an alert that when will have a "take me out of here" and a "cancel" button so if they hit cancel it will cancel the function of the back button?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use the jQuery BBQ plugin to rewrite the functionality of the next/previous buttons to make it more seemless transitioning throughout this "wizard"

http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-bbq-plugin/

Though it is a bit complex to setup, take a look at the examples provided if you're looking for the same functionality.

Chances are you'll probably have to refactor your code to accommodate, and it will take hours.

Answer 2

You should return a message from the onbeforeunload event, like this:

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
    return "Leaving this page will reset the wizard";
};

Note that this event will fire when the user leaves the page for any reason, even after your wizard finishes.
You should set a flag when the wizard finishes and not return a message.