Question

window.event.returnvalue stop navigation??

Asked by: davidmullen

We have a bound data control on a web page.  If the data in this control has changed and the user inadvertantly starts to navigate away from the page (Refreshes, Closes IE4, hits Hyper Link...) we want to prompt the user to save their data.  Currently we can use the window.event.returnvalue within the Window_OnBeforeUnload event to stop the navigation.  Unfortunately, this throws up a dialog box that simply asks the user to cancel the navigation.  We don't want to ask them to cancel the navigation, we only want to ask them if they want to save and if they click yes then the navigation should automatically be canceled.  We can't overwrite the "Cancel Navigation" prompt - does anyone know how we might accomplish this??  Below is the work around we are currently displaying to the user.  We only want to prompt them for saving.




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Asked On
1999-04-15 at 09:08:19ID10150740
Tags

onbeforeunload

,

stop

,

cancel

Topic

Web Authoring

Participating Experts
1
Points
100
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: nettromPosted on 1999-04-16 at 05:13:35ID: 1861454

I've been unable to create a kind of 'yes/no' dialog for the user when the onbeforeUnload()-event fires, but you can insert your desired message into the dialog by giving the event a return-value of your choice.  e.g:

event.returnValue = "We'd like to remind you that you should save your work before leaving.  Click 'Cancel' to go back and save.  Click 'OK' if you've saved your work and are ready to go on";

the user will then get this message, and the OK/Cancel-information is giving him/her the correct instructions so that he can cancel the navigation and go back and save.

for more information try http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/events/onbeforeunload.asp#onbeforeunload

 

by: davidmullenPosted on 1999-04-20 at 07:11:38ID: 1861455

unfortunately we had already tried this.  Though it works, we want to replace some of the text in the message with our own message.

 

by: nettromPosted on 1999-04-20 at 14:21:05ID: 1861456

then I'm outta options... sorry.

 

by: nettromPosted on 1999-04-21 at 03:17:01ID: 1861457

featured on Webreference.com http://www.webreference.com/dhtml/diner/beforeunload/

seems they don't feature any custom message except what's put in between the two standard messages.

upon first reading your question I tested it a bit with IE, and you can always throw an alert() or something, but in the end IE will _always_ show the standard OK/Cancel dialog.  or at least that's what it seemed like to me.  you can't return prematurely from the function to cancel that dialog, and if you try to use any return value it'll be used for the dialog.  so it seems that IE first calls the function set to take care of unbeforeunload and when that function has returned throws up the OK/Cancel dialog.  this will, of course, leave us unable to customize it. :(

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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