mailto link (in chrome) is triggering [removed] - can i prevent this?

Question

Possibly related to How to open mailto link in Chrome with Window.open without creating a new tab?

Hi all. I have a form page where i\'ve put a window.onbeforeunload co

Answer 1

Another option, also a bit hacky but a bit more generic way to make the beforeunload ignore certain types of links:

In the beforeunload, inspect the link that caused the beforeunload, and if it is not a http or https link, don't bother the user.

Unfortunately it is not easy to inspect the link that caused the beforeunload, so this is where it gets a little hacky with an onclick handler and global variable.

var lastClicked = null;
window.onclick = function(e){
    e = e || window.event;
    lastClicked = e.target
}
window.onbeforeunload = function(e){
    if (changed && lastClicked && lastClicked.href 
        && lastClicked.href.substring(0,4) == 'http')
        return "You have unsaved changes";
}

Edit: Almost forgot, this answer comes from here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12065766/421243