Preventing Data Loss when hitting back button

IronStar · July 16th, 2005, 10:16 PM

Hi,

I have a form where a user could have entered/updated some data. I can tell if any of the inputs have changed by creating a global boolean variable in the script tag and have the onChange() event handler set it to true if anything changes. If the user hits the back button or closes the browser by accident they will loose their updates. I can trap the event with onUnload and confirm that they are going to loose their updates. Can you stop the action of hitting the back button or closing the browser if the user does not want to loose their updates? Or can you temporarily disable the browser's back and close buttons while they are updating data?

Thanks,
Tom

joefawcett · July 17th, 2005, 05:39 AM

In IE, not sure about other browsers, you can use onbeforeunload which allows the user to be warned that they will lose data at which point they can cancel the unload.

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

IronStar · July 17th, 2005, 12:33 PM

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the advice. Is there a way to stop the page from unloading if the user accidentally closes the browser or hits the back button?

Tom

interrupt · July 19th, 2005, 03:30 AM

Couldn't you use a cookie to grab the form data? I assume you are talking about form data?

Cheers

prophet · July 19th, 2005, 05:29 AM

In Internet Explorer the onBeforeUnload event allows you to prompt the user if the browser is about to be closed, or the page is being navigated elsewhere.

Example:

<script language="javascript">
function handleOnBeforeUnload() {
event.returnValue = "Some custom message in here.";
}
</script>

...

<body onBeforeUnload="handleOnBeforeUnload();">

prophet · July 19th, 2005, 05:30 AM

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

IronStar · July 19th, 2005, 09:18 PM

I am using Firefox as a browser. As a rule I try to stay as browser independent as possible.

I am experimenting with the captureEvents method as a way to override the default beahvior for the onUnLoad event:

      <script language="JavaScript1.2">
         var changed = false

         // override the document.unLoad event handler
         window.captureEvents(Event.UNLOAD);

         // Register the event handlers here:
         window.onUnLoad = handleUnload;

         // function to handle the unLoad
         function handleUnLoad
         {
            alert("The page has unloaded.");
         }

         // Function to set the changed flag to T
         function dataChanged()
         {
            changed = true
         }
      </script>

I am having some trouble getting it to work properly in IE and Firefox. Does anyone have any experience with this?

joefawcett · July 20th, 2005, 02:13 AM

You cannot stop them unloading the browser and to assign an event handler you need lowercase:

Code:

window.onunload = handleUnload;

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

IronStar · July 23rd, 2005, 07:00 PM

It seems odd to me that the captureEvents method can accept Event.UNLOAD as an argument but cannot capture the event. Is this behavior documented anywhere?