I am interested in displaying an alert to a user with OK button to close the alert, and a more/details button which upon clicking on it displays certain details (text, table, data, etc). Can it be done using PHP/HTML alone?
The situation you're describing is possible, but would not be the accepted or fastest way of doing it. Using PHP requires a trip back to the server which reloads the page - not something you want to be doing if you want easy usability.
The recommended solution is to use Javascript, or jQuery. I would recommend against using jQuery UI unless you're going to use more than one part of it - it's a great library but it has much more functionality than you need and unless you host the file yourself, the download you get from major CDNs is large and will take a while to load.
However, there is a solution I know of and have use called Alertify. It is a JS plugin that deals specifically with alert, confirm and prompt dialog boxes, and can be fully customised. Here's the site if you want to have a look: https://fabien-d.github.io/alertify.js/. It comes with demos and example code so you can adapt that to your purposes.
I am developing a form using Javascript for styling that will be used to submit many different things. However, the majority of the time the different things will only be slightly different so it would really benefit users if when you press the Back button on the browser, the form is exactly as you left it before you submitted the form.
Note: This already works when using a normal HTML/Javascript-less form, the question I am asking is how I can retain this functionality when using Javascript to hide/replace input fields etc.
I've tried History.js and HTML5's replaceState() but nothing seems to work. Also if it helps, this will be a private website that requires the latest browser installed so don't feel hesitant to recommend solutions only available in the latest browser releases.
Many thanks!
Update #1: Here's an image better explaining what I need.
Update #2: Okay I managed to crack it perfectly, cross-browser included. I'll post a solution tomorrow after I've had some sleep.
Okay so I went back to the drawing board and tried to figure something out using the tools I already know exist. The case with each browser (usually, haven't tested any non-major browsers) is that when you press the Back button after submitting a form, text input fields are usually populated. I wanted to see if this worked the same with hidden input fields, turns out it does!
So next I set up some Javascript events to listen out for the page load.
if($.browser.mozilla)
{
$(window).on('pageshow', pageManager.init);
}
else
{
$(pageManager.init);
}
This works for Chrome, Firefox and IE9. I haven't tested any other browsers but these are the only browsers that will be used for my private site so it's good enough for me. I'm sure you can set up your own preferred solution for your needs but this is what worked best for me.
Anyway the above code means every time the page loads, pageManager.init() will run. Here's an excerpt of the code I use to check if the Back button was pressed and it's not simply just a page refresh or a first-time visit:
if($('input[name="form_submitted"]').val() != '')
{
// back button was pressed
}
As you can see, it's as simple as checking if your hidden form field contains a value. To actually guarantee a value will be set, make sure to set on submission of your form:
$('#my-form').submit(function()
{
$('input[name="form_submitted"]').val('true');
}
It really is as simple as that. This is one of the best methods I can think of for determining if the Back button of a browser was pressed. Now, to cache all the form values for the visible fields it can be as simple as using JSON.stringify() on the fields and sticking it all in one hidden field which you decode later.
AFAIK, this is generally handled manually. That is, you use hashtags or pushState (with appropriate state object) and either on hash change or on popstate you grab the hash/state, and (re)build your DOM as needed.
(note, I combined two very different scenarios into one there, sorry. if you were only using hash changes, you wouldn't likely be using pushState, as pushState doesn't trigger onhashchange according to MDN.)
On my website I have some javascript which changes the URL by adding # and some information as the user takes some action.
for example:
www.mysite.com/index.html#shoes=23,books=12
www.mysite.com/index.html#shoes=24,books=12
The website works brilliantly but the back button appears to be broken
When the user presses back I don't want to move back to my previous values on the url with the hash but I really want to go back, like moving away from the page.
Can somebody help ?
This is a feature of the browser: visiting a new URL with a hash is a separate history item. You will not be able to solve this without changing how you handle URLs. From a UI perspective, this seriously makes sense. Imagine if gmail didn't do this (like in the old days). The user experience would be significantly diminished.
Unless this breaks your app, I suggest you leave it as it is; your users will thank you for it.
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I am currently building a registration page where if the user leaves, I want to pop up a CSS box asking him if he is sure or not. I can accomplish this feat using confirm boxes, but the client says that they are too ugly. I've tried using unload and beforeunload, but both cannot stop the page from being redirected. Using those to events, I return false, so maybe there's a way to cancel other than returning false?
Another solution that I've had was redirecting them to another page that has my popup, but the problem with that is that if they do want to leave the page, and it wasn't a mistake, they lose the page they were originally trying to go to. If I was a user, that would irritate me.
The last solution was real popup window. The only thing I don't like about that is that the main winow will have their destination page while the pop will have my page. In my opinion it looks disjoint. On top of that, I'd be worried about popup blockers.
Just to add to everyones comments. I understand that it is irritating to prevent users from exiting the page, and in my opinion it should not be done. Right now I am using a confirm box at this point. What happens is that it's not actually "preventing" the user from leaving, what the client actually wants to do is make a suggestion if the user is having doubts about registering. If the user is halfway through the registraiton process and leaves for some reason, the client wants to offer the user a free coupon to a seminar (this client is selling seminars) to hopefully persuade the user to register. The client is under the impression that since the user is already on the form, he is thinking of registering, and therefore maybe a seminar of what he is registering for would be the final push to get the user to register. Ideally I don't have to prevent the user from leaving, what would be just as good, and in my opinion better is if I can pause the unload process. Maybe a sleep command? I don't really have to keep the user on the page because either way they will be leaving to go to a different page.
Also, as people have stated, this is a terriable title, so if someone knows a better one, I'd really appreciate it if they could change the title to something no so spammer inviting.
As soon as I saw the words "prevent the user" I started to wail in agony. Never prevent the user, only help them.
If they see your registration page and run off, that's their choice. Pop up a javascript confirm box if they've already filled in some data (because they might be navigating away accidentally) but leave it at that. If they haven't touched the form, leave them alone - they don't want to fill in your form.
Look at other methods of engaging users. If your form is huge and scary, break it into simple manageable chunks or better yet, simplify things so much that the user only gives you data when you need it. For example, you might not need their address until you want to post something to them.
By breaking it into multiple parts you can hook them with a simple form and once they've invested that time, they'll be more likely to continue the process.
But don't harass users. If they don't want to register, pestering them with pop-ups and jaavscript dialogues will just chase them off the site completely.
With that in mind, assuming you're just trying to stop people half-filling-in forms, there are a couple of options to genuinely help people:
Detect if the form has changed and ask them a simple confirm() message.
This is all you can do. A CSS "pop-in" just won't work because you can't control* the window location in the unload event.
*You can put an event listener on all your page's links to fire off something to check the form, but this only helps if the user clicks on one of those links. It won't help if, for example, the user clicks back or closes the window. You could do both CSS and javascript but you end up with a bit of a mess.
Persist the state of the form behind the scenes.
An extension to #1. Instead of squabbling with the user, let them go where they want but save the content of the form either to session or cookie (if it'll fit) and put something on the page (like SO's orange prompt bars at the top of the page) that reminds them that they've started filling in a form and gives them a link back to the form.
When they click that link, you load the data out of the cookie (or session) back into the form and let them carry on. This has the clear benefit of letting them do what they like on your site and keeps the data safe.. ish.
If they don't come back and their cookie/session expire, that's their fault. You can only lead a horse to water. It's not your job to force it to drink.
Don't do it.
But if you want, try this. Record mouse positions and detect a quick upward thrust -- the user is reaching for the BIG X or the top left or top right. Now might be your chance for an unobtrusive box in the screen.
I've seen this implement on the web and it is evil.
If you want to trap links, you could rewrite the links in the page to go to a "you really want to leave?" javascript function, passing the destination URL as an argument.
If you wanna keep users from using their "Back" button, or keep them from putting another URL in the address bar, stop. Stop now. (1) Browsers were made to prevent exactly that kind of obnoxious behavior, and (2) Even if they allowed it, see the last two words of (1). It's freaking rude. Your site is not that special, no matter how cool you think it is.
window.onbeforeunload = function() { return "Message"; };
Use a JavaScript like this to display a leave confirmation message.
Here are just a couple of approaches I could think of but they are not without flaw:
Whatcha Gonna Do technique
Detect the mouse position going towards the edges of the browser as the user might be going to close the tab, window, go back, navigate elsewhere among other things. If so, immediately prompt them that that may be a mistake and they are going to lose out on something very valuable. However, the catch here is that you don't know for sure what their intentions were and you might piss them off with that popup. Also, they might use a bunch of shortcuts such as Ctrl+W etc to do the same.
You've Got Mail technique
If you've managed to get hold of the user's email address before they closed the page, you've hit a jackpot. As soon as the user types anything into the email box and then leaves it, immediately send it to the server using AJAX. Save the state of the page into localStorage or on the server using a cookie or something so it can be recreated later. Every couple of hours send them an email giving them a direct link to the previously saved form, and maybe with special offers this time.
History Repeats Itself technique
Then there's the infamous history manipulation where you keep stacking the current page into the document history so the back button renders effectively worthless.
Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket technique
Another technique off the top of my head is to create multiple windows in the background with the registration form and keep them all in sync when any the fields in any one changes. This is a classical technique and really puts the "don't put all your eggs in one basket" saying into real-life usage.
Another advantage of this awesome technique is even if the user closes one of the windows, and later comes across an identical cloned window with all the fields they filled up-to-date populated, they might get confused and think that they never closed the page. And guess what, this time they might just go ahead and fill out the registration form. But you have to be cautious with this as anything more than 2 or 3 clones will make it obvious as to what's going on.
You're Winner technique
Another technique is to tell every user they they are the Xth visitor on the site and use a good rounded number for X such as 1000, 10000, 50000, etc. Tell them that they can claim their prize once they register on the site. Imagine how special each user feels when they land on your site. The prize doesn't have to be anything tangible, it can simply be free coupons that you find on the intertubes.
Where Do You Want To Go Today? technique 1
This is basically a rip-off of your answer. Use document.location.href = 'some url' inside your onbeforeunload callback to navigate to a different page before it is unloaded.
1 Firefox only.
Note: there is no silver bullet solution here unless you write your own browser with your own security policies, but these are all optimizations that you can do to make it utterly impossible for users to leave.
Not all browsers support a modal popup, without which your page would go ahead and navigate anyway.
This is real awful requirement. The sort of requirement that is reasonable in a desktop application but entire unreasonable feature of a web site. Imagine being unable to leave a website.
The answer is either use the horrible confirm box and lump it. Or don't ask the user to enter too much data per page. Use a step by step wizard style data entry, the loss due to accidental navigation is minimised.
You can change the Value of the url using document.location.href = "www.website.com"
I can accomplish this feat using confirm boxes, but the client says that they are too ugly.
If the problem is the ugliness of the standard JS popup boxes, try something like this: http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/inline-modal-window-w-css-and-jquery/
Apart from that I second what most people are saying: do this with extreme caution if you don't want to lose users.
I'm writing a bookmarklet and I need to be able to prompt the user for a "password". However, I don't want it to be in clear text on screen, so I cannot use prompt.
Is there a masked alternative to prompt()?
Any other suggestion?
You can create a floating div on the current page, with a form containing a password field.
alternative: let the bookmarlet point to a particular web page. Get the password from the user on that page, and continue.
This solution does not use javascript at all, as you may have noticed. If you really insist on using javascript, you will have to create a new window using javascript (window.open), add form and input elements to it, and set the form's submit value to your web app backend.
you can of course, display a dialog box on the current page, but that will be pretty irritating to the user. Be warned.
jrh
there isn't one - try looking into Thickbox on a modal setting like this:
Open iFrame Modal
The easy, fast answer: No, there are no cross browser method like window.prompt() that masks the user input. There are however some proprietary stuff you could look into. In MSIE you got window.createPopup(), window.showModalDialog() and window.showModelessDialog(). However I don´t reccomend using this approach =P
What would happen if you used http authentication for your destination? Would the UA prompt the user with a un/pw?