Javascript: Confirm a page exit

**krahny** · 12-29-2009 09:04 PM

I want to make a page that, when the user presses the exit button, a confirmation box appears that says "Are you sure you want to exit?". If you click OK, then it closes, and if you click Cancel it dosen't. Heres the code that I have:

HTML Code:

<body onunload="confirm('Are you sure you want to exit?')">

When I exit with this code, though, it exits and then displays the confirmation box, witch is useless since the page has already closed.

Could someone please help me figure out a way to stop the exit, and then exits if the user presses the OK button.

**misson** · 12-29-2009 09:14 PM

To cancel an event from an inline event handler, you need to return "false". Using DOM event registration, you'd call the event object's preventDefault method.

**krahny** · 12-29-2009 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by misson

To cancel an event from an inline event handler, you need to return "false". Using DOM event registration, you'd call the event object's preventDefault method.

Could you please explain to me how to do this? Perhaps some code or something.

**~~Twinkie~~** · 12-30-2009 12:04 AM

The browser will not allow you to control whether the page closes for security reasons. Therefore, there is a built in behavior within the unonload event.

Code:

function confirm() {
  //Code to execute before page close
  return '[close message]';
}
window.onunload=confirm;

This displays a confirm box, sent by the browser, with the power to halt the page closing. Using DOM event registration leaves you to struggle between browser specific methods. This bit of code will work everywhere.

**krahny** · 12-30-2009 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by Twinkie

The browser will not allow you to control whether the page closes for security reasons. Therefore, there is a built in behavior within the unonload event.

Code:

function confirm() {
  //Code to execute before page close
  return '[close message]';
}
window.onunload=confirm;

This displays a confirm box, sent by the browser, with the power to halt the page closing. Using DOM event registration leaves you to struggle between browser specific methods. This bit of code will work everywhere.

I tried this code, but it didn't work either.

Thanks anyway.

**misson** · 12-30-2009 05:58 AM

It turns out you need to use the beforeunload event, which works differently than other events. The event handler returns the string to display in the confirmation dialog. Basically, do what Twinkie shows, but assign confirm to window.onbeforeunload. Note that this event isn't a standard event, but it's supported by the current versions of most of the major browsers (Opera not included).

**krahny** · 01-07-2010 05:52 PM

It worked!

Thanks!

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