Is there a cross-browser onload event when clicking the back button?

Question

For all major browsers (except IE), the JavaScript onload event doesn’t fire when the page loads as a result of a back button operation — it only fires when the

Answer 1

I thought this would be for "onunload", not page load, since aren't we talking about firing an event when hitting "Back"? $document.ready() is for events desired on page load, no matter how you get to that page (i.e. redirect, opening the browser to the URL directly, etc.), not when clicking "Back", unless you're talking about what to fire on the previous page when it loads again. And I'm not sure the page isn't getting cached as I've found that Javascripts still are, even when $document.ready() is included in them. We've had to hit Ctrl+F5 when editing our scripts that have this event whenever we revise them and we want test the results in our pages.

$(window).unload(function(){ alert('do unload stuff here'); }); 

is what you'd want for an onunload event when hitting "Back" and unloading the current page, and would also fire when a user closes the browser window. This sounded more like what was desired, even if I'm outnumbered with the $document.ready() responses. Basically the difference is between an event firing on the current page while it's closing or on the one that loads when clicking "Back" as it's loading. Tested in IE 7 fine, can't speak for the other browsers as they aren't allowed where we are. But this might be another option.