Warn user before leaving page with unsaved changes

Hi,

I wish to ask warn the user that there are unsaved changes (if there
are) and allow them to cancel navigating away/closing the browser.

Investigation leads me to believe the "OnBeforeUnload" event is the
best bet - this does as I wish... Except it doesn't distinguish between
hyperlinks within the site and hyperlinks outside it.

I.e. simple Hyperlink button will raise the Unload event when clicked,
as will closing the window, but I'm only interested in the Closing
window one, and there doesn't appear to be any way to tell them apart.

If someone could help here, it would be very useful!
Thanks,
Mark.

re: Warn user before leaving page with unsaved changes

Scott Mitchell has some good articles on his site about doing this
using JavaScript, if that is an option for you. Here is a link to one
of the articles:

http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/101304-1.aspx

re: Warn user before leaving page with unsaved changes

I've done something similar to that. Ignoring the hyperlinks and only
responding to a close involves some manual coding. Start with this
block of javascript.

var IsLinkClicked = false;

function CheckUnload()
{
if (!IsLinkClicked && ("1" ==
document.forms["Form1"].IsChanged.Value))
{
if (confirm("You have unsaved changes. Click OK to save changes."))
{
document.forms["Form1"].submit();
alert("Changes saved.");

return false;
}
}
}

First thing, you'll want to set a hidden fields 'IsChanged' to true
whenever you make a change that should be saved. This way you'll only
prompt when a change has actually been made. Secondly, if the user
clicks on any hyperlinks on your page you need to set 'IsLinkClicked' =
true using javascript whenever a user clicks on a link. That way you'll
only prompt when the user closes the window or manually types in a new
address into the URL bar.

Instead of a hidden field for IsChanged, you could probably implement
this as a javascript variable also.

re: Warn user before leaving page with unsaved changes

When it is a planned navigation (like hiperlink , button etc) set a
javascript variable and check this variable in OnBeforeUnload to determine
whether to display warning message or not ..

for eg, declare javscript variable

var warn_pageunload = true;

Fron button click , link click etc set

warn_pageunload =false;

In the unload event

if(warn_pageunload == true)
{
\\code to warn user
}

"markalroberts@gmail.com" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I wish to ask warn the user that there are unsaved changes (if there
> are) and allow them to cancel navigating away/closing the browser.
>
> Investigation leads me to believe the "OnBeforeUnload" event is the
> best bet - this does as I wish... Except it doesn't distinguish between
> hyperlinks within the site and hyperlinks outside it.
>
> I.e. simple Hyperlink button will raise the Unload event when clicked,
> as will closing the window, but I'm only interested in the Closing
> window one, and there doesn't appear to be any way to tell them apart.
>
> If someone could help here, it would be very useful!
> Thanks,
> Mark.
>
>[/color]

re: Warn user before leaving page with unsaved changes

incase you have not come across this

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...foreunload.asp

"markalroberts@gmail.com" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I wish to ask warn the user that there are unsaved changes (if there
> are) and allow them to cancel navigating away/closing the browser.
>
> Investigation leads me to believe the "OnBeforeUnload" event is the
> best bet - this does as I wish... Except it doesn't distinguish between
> hyperlinks within the site and hyperlinks outside it.
>
> I.e. simple Hyperlink button will raise the Unload event when clicked,
> as will closing the window, but I'm only interested in the Closing
> window one, and there doesn't appear to be any way to tell them apart.
>
> If someone could help here, it would be very useful!
> Thanks,
> Mark.
>
>[/color]