This sounded like something almost impossible to do when it was presented to me. I know you can display a dialog box to confirm when leaving a web page. But is it possible to display a dialog box when leaving a site?
I haven't been able to find/create anything that can read the address bar and know that you're leaving the site.
First off define which events can actually take your user away from your site?
A click of a link inside your web site content
A submit of a form to an outside action
A javascript from a child window that changes window.location on its parent
User starting a search in the search bar (FF and IE)
User entering a search/address in the browser address bar.
User hitting a back button (or backspace) when it just came to your site
User hitting a forward button (or shift-backspace) when they were off the site before but came back by getting there via Back button functionality
User closes the browser window
So. what can you do about all these?
These are easy. Check your anchors and if they do point outside, add some functionality in the onclick event
Similar to 1. Add your functionality for the onsubmit event of the form posting back outside of your site.
-> 8. don't really have an applicable solution that could be controlled. You can abuse onbeforeunload event as much as you want, but you won't have much success of knowing what's going on. And there are certain limitations related to onbeforeunload as well, so your hands will be tied most of the time.
The real question?
Why would you want to control this event anyway except for bothering your users not to leave you. Begging doesn't give much justice in the web world anyway. And when some site would bother me with messages or even worse prevent me from leaving I wouldn't want to get back anymore. It smells of bad bad bad usability and gives a hint of adware site.
Rather try to keep your users interested by providing them with valuable content.
Your best bet is listening on the non-standard beforeunload event. This is supported by almost all browsers, expect of Opera which is known to adhere the W3C standards extremely strictly.
Kickoff example:
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
return "You're leaving the site.";
};
This message will show up in kind of a confirmation dialogue.
In your specific case you need to turn it off (just set to null) whenever a navigational link is clicked or an internal form is submitted. You can do that by listening on the click event of the desired links and the submit event of the desired forms. jQuery may be of great help here:
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
return "You're leaving the site.";
};
$(document).ready(function() {
$('a[rel!=ext]').click(function() { window.onbeforeunload = null; });
$('form').submit(function() { window.onbeforeunload = null; });
});
You only need to give all external links the defacto standard attribute rel="ext" to denote that those are external links.
Google
This may help
You need to check onclick event before attach initLocalLinkException();
Disclaimer: It's not tested.
HTML:
internal link
html anchor
external link
blank external link
<form action="test.html" method="post" >
<button type="submit">Post Button</button>
</form>
JavaScript:
$(document).ready(function () {
initLocalLinkException();
window.onbeforeunload = function () { confirmExit() };
$('form').submit(function () {
window.onbeforeunload = null;
});
});
function initLocalLinkException() {
$('a').click(function () {
if ($(this).attr('target') != '_blank') {
var link = $(this).attr('href');
if (link.substr(0, 4) == 'http') {
var LocalDomains = new Array('http://www.yourdomain.com',
'https://yourdomain.com',
'localhost', '127.0.0.1');
var matchCount = 0;
$.each(LocalDomains, function () {
if (this == link.substr(0, this.length)) {
matchCount++;
}
});
if (matchCount == '0') {
confirmExit();
} else {
window.onbeforeunload = null;
}
} else { window.onbeforeunload = null; }
}
});
}
function confirmExit() {
alert('Are you sure?'); // Do whatever u want.
}
Take a look at this thread.
One possible way to achieve this would be to use Javascript to examine all of the a tags on your page when it loads and check if they are linking to an external site. If so, you can add an onclick event to show a confirm/alert box or something more elegant. Of course, using jQuery will greatly simplify the Javascript you'll have to write, like in the above thread.
Using the expression from this question, you can do the following:
$.expr[':'].external = function(obj){
return !obj.href.match(/^mailto\:/) && (obj.hostname != location.hostname);
};
$.expr[':'].internal = function(obj){
return obj.hostname == location.hostname;
};
$(function() {
var unloadMessage = function() {
return "Don't leave me!";
};
$('a:internal').click(function() {
window.onbeforeunload = null;
});
$('form').submit(function() {
window.onbeforeunload = null;
});
$('a:external').click(function() {
window.onbeforeunload = unloadMessage;
});
window.onbeforeunload = unloadMessage;
});
It's possible. Just try entering a question or answer to SO and then navigating away before submitting it. It doesn't matter whether you click on a link or type in the address bar, you get an "Are you sure?" alert. You might post over on SO Meta asking how they do this.
You can do that if you design your site as a one page web app.
It means, a single page is loaded, then other contents are loaded dynamically using ajax.
In that case the onbeforeunload is triggered when the user leave the page/site.
Related
This question is sort of what i'm thinking, but has no answers.
I have successfully implemented hash navigation in my application using the following code:
$(window).on('hashchange', function () {
loadContent(location.hash.slice(1));
}).trigger('hashchange');
I use this event to download partial HTML content from the server via Ajax, and it gets called when the browser detects a change on the hash in the address bar. The addresses looks like this:
https://www.mywebsite.com/#/account/login
The problem is, when the link is the same it does not fire the hashchange event (for obvious reasons). I need to call the function loadContent to refresh the page.
For example, before I implemented hash navigation, if the user wanted to discard all the changes he made to the page, he simply clicks the same link in the system menu, or click the address bar and hit enter. Then, the browser will redirect to the same page and drop all the changes.
But now, I can't detect that. What can I do to detect those commands and call my loadContent(location.hash.slice(1)); function?
After some research, I come to conclusion that there's no way to do that. I found this question that is very close to mine, but also no useful answer, other than handling the "onclick" event on every link on the site. Not a very beautiful solution - and does not solve the functionality of hitting enter on the address bar.
I ended up with a different approach. Definitely does not solve the way I wanted, however I think that it's more elegant from code perspective and practical from user perspective. I created a keyboard shortcut to refresh the page:
function doc_keyUp(e) {
if (e.altKey && e.keyCode === 82) { // ALT + R
if (confirm("Discard changes and refresh the page?")) {
loadContent(location.hash.slice(1));
}
return false;
}
}
document.addEventListener('keyup', doc_keyUp, false);
It may a simple approach, but what if you store your current hash in a property and afterwards register a click event and check if the hash is still the same?
Here is an (untested) example. But you should get the idea.
var storedHash = document.location.hash;
// You may add a data attribute to corresponding links to not
// catch all 'a'-tags (i.e. document.querySelectorAll('a[data-nav=true]'))
var links = document.querySelectorAll('a');
for (var i in links) {
if (!links.hasOwnProperty(i)) {
continue;
}
links[i].addEventListener('click', function() {
if (document.location.hash === storedHash) {
// Here comes your logic
}
});
}
I've been asked to have a pop-up when visitors leave the site asking them if they really want to leave. This pop-up will only show if their shopping cart has items in it.
I can easily limit the pop-up to when the cart has items, however the issue I'm having is that even clicking an internal link loads the pop-up - how can I have it so this only comes up when actually leaving the site.
<script language="JavaScript">
window.onbeforeunload = confirmExit;
function confirmExit()
{
return "some message about leaving";
}
</script>
If a link is clicked, it will tell you in e.target.activeElement. You can check if it's a link there:
window.onbeforeunload = confirmExit;
function confirmExit(e)
{
var $element = $(e.target.activeElement);
if ($element.prop("tagName") !== "A") {
return "some message about leaving";
}
}
Note: You can add additional conditions checking $element.attr("href") to make sure it displays the message for links that aren't your site.
Alright first of all: Don't do this. Please. It's super-annoying for users. Just make sure the shopping cart items are stored on the server or in a cookie so users can always go back to the site.
Looking at this related question: How can i get the destination url in javascript onbeforeunload event? it can't be done easily.
Instead of using onbeforeunload, either attach a click handler to external links on your site that shows the popup, or attach a click handler to all links that checks if the link is external or not.
Again, don't do this...
You could get the URL of a clicked link item, and check if it's on the same domain. Put this in an if not statement, with the current code inside.
you'll have to control it to enable and disable the behavior, something like this:
<script>
var beforeunload = function (event) {
var message = 'some message about leaving';
(event || window.event).returnValue = message; // Gecko + IE
return message; // Webkit, Safari, Chrome...
};
document.addEventListener('click', function(event) {
if (event.target.tagName === 'A') {
window.removeEventListener('beforeunload', beforeunload);
}
});
window.addEventListener('beforeunload', beforeunload);
</script>
this is going to remove the beforeunload event whenever a link is clicked on the page.
One way, and again, I wouldn't recommend doing this either - the user should be able to leave your site without receiving a warning - but you could unregister the event if a link has been clicked:
$('a').click(function() {
window.onbeforeunload = null;
return true; // continue
});
I know there are a lot of questions regarding this but nothing is answering me right. I want to show a confirmation dialog when user leaves the page. If the user press Cancel he will stay on page and if OK the changes that he has made will be rollback-ed by calling a method. I have done like this:
window.onbeforeunload = function () {
var r = confirm( "Do you want to leave?" );
if (r == true) {
//I will call my method
}
else {
return false;
}
};
The problem is that I am getting the browser default popup: "LeavePage / StayOnPage"
This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave - data you
have entered may not be saved.
This message is shown in Firefox, in Chrome is a little different. I get this popup after I press OK on my first confirmation dialog.
Is there a way not to show this dialog? (the second one, that I did not create).
Or if there is any way to control this popup, does anyone know how to do that?
Thanks
Here's what I've done, modify to fit your needs:
// This default onbeforeunload event
window.onbeforeunload = function(){
return "Do you want to leave?"
}
// A jQuery event (I think), which is triggered after "onbeforeunload"
$(window).unload(function(){
//I will call my method
});
Note: it's tested to work in Google Chrome, IE8 and IE10.
This is simple. Just use
window.onbeforeunload = function(){
return '';
};
to prompt when the user reloads, and
window.close = function(){
return '';
};
to prompt when the user closes the page.
But the user have to click on the page once, or do anything on the page for the code to detect. You don't have to put anything the the return'';, because JavaScript interpreter would just ignore it.
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
if (data_needs_saving()) {
return "Do you really want to leave our brilliant application?";
} else {
return;
}
};
I realize this is likely a duplicate, but I've been googling/SOing for a day now and I can't find a satisfactory answer. If there is an answer already on SO, please send me there.
I have a client that insists on having an exit message popup confirming they want to exit the site, just like Gmail does. (I've already tried arguing against it. He is immovable, so no comments about how that is bad practice please.)
I've found this code:
<script>
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
return 'Are you sure you want to exit?';
}
<script>
But it runs no matter what I do - reloading the page, clicking on the nav, etc.
I just want the message to show up when the user closes the tab/browser. I suspect it's something simple I'm missing but I'm not a Javascript expert.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
EDIT
Here's what is working pretty good. Thanks to all!
var isLeavingSite = true;
//This would be called on each link/button click that navigates
$('a, input[type="submit"]').click(function(){
isLeavingSite = false;
});
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
if(isLeavingSite)
return 'Are you sure you want to exit?';
}
Though it could be a fair amount of work (depending on how your site is written), you could do something like this (pseudo-code):
var isLeavingSite = true;
//This would be called on each link/button click that navigates
function GlobalLinkHandler()
{
isLeavingSite = false;
}
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
if(isLeavingSite)
return 'Are you sure you want to exit?';
}
If you're using jQuery, you can use the code below to flip the isLeavingSite flag:
$('a, input[type="submit"]').click(function(){ isLeavingSite = false; });
What'll have to do is make use a variable that you set if any link is clicked on the site, then inside the onbeforeunload event check if that variable is set meaning they clicked a link or not set meaning they're closing the tab.
You can also use that variable to simple set the href of the link; that will allow you to then check what link they clicked on inside the onbeforeunload event and allow you to check if they're clicking on a link to go to another page on your site or clicking on an external link to another site.
If your using jQuery try this Confirm before exit
Is it possible to block users from closing the window using the exit button [X]? I am actually providing a close button in the page for the users to close the window.Basically what I'm trying to do is to force the users to fill the form and submit it. I don't want them to close the window till they have submitted it.
I really appreciate your comments, I'm not thinking of hosting on any commercial website. Its an internal thing, we are actually getting all the staff to participate in this survey we have designed....
I know its not the right way but I was wondering if there was a solution to the problem we have got here...
Take a look at onBeforeUnload.
It wont force someone to stay but it will prompt them asking them whether they really want to leave, which is probably the best cross browser solution you can manage. (Similar to this site if you attempt to leave mid-answer.)
<script language="JavaScript">
window.onbeforeunload = confirmExit;
function confirmExit() {
return "You have attempted to leave this page. Are you sure?";
}
</script>
Edit: Most browsers no longer allow a custom message for onbeforeunload.
See this bug report from the 18th of February, 2016.
onbeforeunload dialogs are used for two things on the Modern Web:
Preventing users from inadvertently losing data.
Scamming users.
In an attempt to restrict their use for the latter while not stopping the former, we are going to not display the string provided by the webpage. Instead, we are going to use a generic string.
Firefox already does this[...]
If you don't want to display popup for all event you can add conditions like
window.onbeforeunload = confirmExit;
function confirmExit() {
if (isAnyTaskInProgress) {
return "Some task is in progress. Are you sure, you want to close?";
}
}
This works fine for me
What will you do when a user hits ALT + F4 or closes it from Task Manager
Why don't you keep track if they did not complete it in a cookie or the DB and when they visit next time just bring the same screen back...:BTW..you haven't finished filling this form out..."
Of course if you were around before the dotcom bust you would remember porn storms, where if you closed 1 window 15 others would open..so yes there is code that will detect a window closing but if you hit ALT + F4 twice it will close the child and the parent (if it was a popup)
This will pop a dialog asking the user if he really wants to close or stay, with a message.
var message = "You have not filled out the form.";
window.onbeforeunload = function(event) {
var e = e || window.event;
if (e) {
e.returnValue = message;
}
return message;
};
You can then unset it before the form gets submitted or something else with
window.onbeforeunload = null;
Keep in mind that this is extremely annoying. If you are trying to force your users to fill out a form that they don't want to fill out, then you will fail: they will find a way to close the window and never come back to your mean website.
How about that?
function internalHandler(e) {
e.preventDefault(); // required in some browsers
e.returnValue = ""; // required in some browsers
return "Custom message to show to the user"; // only works in old browsers
}
if (window.addEventListener) {
window.addEventListener('beforeunload', internalHandler, true);
} else if (window.attachEvent) {
window.attachEvent('onbeforeunload', internalHandler);
}
If your sending out an internal survey that requires 100% participation from your company's employees, then a better route would be to just have the form keep track of the responders ID/Username/email etc. Every few days or so just send a nice little email reminder to those in your organization to complete the survey...you could probably even automate this.
It's poor practice to force the user to do something they don't necessarily want to do. You can't ever really prevent them from closing the browser.
You can achieve a similar effect, though, by making a div on your current web page to layer over top the rest of your controls so your form is the only thing accessible.
Well you can use the window.onclose event and return false in the event handler.
function closedWin() {
confirm("close ?");
return false; /* which will not allow to close the window */
}
if(window.addEventListener) {
window.addEventListener("close", closedWin, false);
}
window.onclose = closedWin;
Code was taken from this site.
In the other hand, if they force the closing (by using task manager or something in those lines) you cannot do anything about it.