ASP.NET, jQuery, dirty forms, and [removed]

Question

In my ASP.NET web app, I\'m trying to create a universal way of warning users before navigating away from a form when they\'ve made changes, using jQuery. Pretty standard st

Answer 1

I came across this post while Googling for a solution for doing the same thing in MVC. This solution, adapted from Herb's above, seems to work well. Since there's nothing MVC-specific about this, it should work just as well for PHP, Classic ASP, or any other kind of application that uses HTML and JQuery.

var isDirty = false;

$(document).ready(function () {
    $(':input').bind("change select keydown", setDirty);
    $('form').submit(clearDirty);

    window.onbeforeunload = function (e) {
        var msg = "You have unsaved changes. "
        if (isDirty == true) {
            var e = e || window.event;
            if (e) { e.returnValue = msg; }
            return msg;
        }
    };
});

setDirty = function () { isDirty = true; }
clearDirty = function () { isDirty = false; }

Answer 2

Interesting, but... why don't you do everything with jQuery?

var  defaultSubmitControl = false;
var  dirty = false;
$(document).ready(function( ) {
    $('form').submit(function( ) { dirty = false });
    $(window).unload(function( ) {
        if ( dirty && confirm('Save?') ) {
            __doPastBack(defaultSubmitControl || $('form :submit[id]').get(0).id, '');
        }
    });
});
···
dirty = true;
···

Now, if that still causes the same issue (unload triggering before submit), you could try a different event tree, so instead of calling __doPostBack directly you do...

setTimeout(function( ) {
    __doPastBack(defaultSubmitControl || $('form :submit[id]').get(0).id, '');
}, 1);  // I think using 0 (zero) works too

I haven't tried this and it's from the top of my head, but I think it could be a way to solve it.

Answer 3

You could always create an inherited page class that has a custom OnLoad / OnUnload method that adds in immediate execution JavaScript.

Then you don't have to handle it at a control specific level but rather the form / page level.

Answer 4

Got this to work by basically tracking the mouse position. Keep in mind you can still get positive values to your Y value (hence my < 50 line of code), but as long as your submit buttons are more than 100 pixels down you should be fine.

Here is the Javascript I added to track mouse changes and capture the onbeforeunload event:

    <script language="JavaScript1.2">
    <!--

    // Detect if the browser is IE or not.
    // If it is not IE, we assume that the browser is NS.
    var IE = document.all?true:false

    // If NS -- that is, !IE -- then set up for mouse capture
    if (!IE) document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEMOVE)

    // Set-up to use getMouseXY function onMouseMove
    document.onmousemove = getMouseXY;

    // Temporary variables to hold mouse x-y pos.s
    var tempX = 0
    var tempY = 0

    // Main function to retrieve mouse x-y pos.s

    function getMouseXY(e) {
      if (IE) { // grab the x-y pos.s if browser is IE
        tempX = event.clientX + document.body.scrollLeft
        tempY = event.clientY + document.body.scrollTop
      } else {  // grab the x-y pos.s if browser is NS
        tempX = e.pageX
        tempY = e.pageY
      }  
      // catch possible negative values in NS4
      if (tempX < 0){tempX = 0}
      if (tempY < 0){tempY = 0}  
      // show the position values in the form named Show
      // in the text fields named MouseX and MouseY
      document.Show.MouseX.value = tempX
      document.Show.MouseY.value = tempY
      return true
    }

    //-->
    </script>


    <script type="text/javascript">

        window.onbeforeunload = HandleOnClose;

        function HandleOnClose(e) {

            var posY = 0;
            var elem = document.getElementsByName('MouseY');
            if (elem[0]) {
                posY = elem[0].value;
            }

            if (posY < 50) {    // Your form "submit" buttons will hopefully be more than 100 pixels down due to movement
                return "You have not selected an option, are you sure you want to close?";
            }
        }

    </script>

Then just add the following form onto your page:

    <form name="Show">
        <input type="hidden" name="MouseX" value="0" size="4">
        <input type="hidden" name="MouseY" value="0" style="display:block" size="0">
    </form>

And that's it! It could use a little cleanup (remove the MouseX, etc), but this worked in my existing ASP.net 3.5 application and thought I would post to help anyone out. Works in IE 7 and Firefox 3.6, haven't tried Chrome yet.

Answer 5

i am looking after this too but what i have find so far is, a solution that uses all the html controls instead of asp.net web controls, have you think of that?

  <script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function () {
      $("form").dirty_form();
      $("#btnCancel").dirty_stopper();
    });             
  </script>