onbeforeunload event is too enthusiastic in IE9

Question

Here\'s some sample test html:

  
    Go nowhere 1<         


        

Answer 1

That's a pretty unfortunate bug. It seems you'll have to work around it, and using the hash link method is probably the best way. To avoid taking the user to the top of the page, cancel the event using event.preventDefault() and event.returnValue = false.

function myClickHandler(e) {
    if (e.preventDefault)
        e.preventDefault();
    e.returnValue = false;
    alert("Not going anywhere!");
}

Call it like this:

Go nowhere 1

Edit: You could cancel the event for all the hash-links on your page like this:

var links = document.links;
for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
    var link = links[i];
    if (link.href == "#") {
        if (link.addEventListener) {
            link.addEventListener("click", cancelEvent, false);
        }
        else if (link.attachEvent) {
            link.attachEvent("onclick", cancelEvent);
        }
    }
}
function cancelEvent(e) {
    e = e || window.event;
    if (e.preventDefault)
        e.preventDefault();
    e.returnValue = false;
}

Or with jQuery using just one line of code:

$("a[href='#']").click(function (e) { e.preventDefault(); });