Question

I am working on a logic where I want user to be redirected to a particular page if JavaScript is not enabled. I have put a meta-tag which will refresh every few seconds and if JavaScript is enabled and I want to use JavaScript to remove that element.

I have tried many things but I have been unsuccessful in removing the tag. Also I tried to empty the content of the tag but it still redirects.

Is there any other way to deal with this issue?

I am posting some code for you to take a look, I just grabbed it from the web but seems to be emptying the contents when I debug through the code:

var m = $('meta');

for (var c = 0; c < m.length; c++) {
    m[c].parentNode.removeChild(m[c]);
    m[c].content = '';
}

I am also open to a server side solution but the client does not send much information such as if javaScript is enabled or not…….

Answer 1

Try this:

// THIS DOES NOT WORK
$( 'meta[http-equiv="refresh"]' ).remove();

It certainly depends on how soon your jQuery code executes and how soon your refresh triggers…

Update: The above method does not work. Even though the meta element is removed from the DOM, the browser still executes the refresh.

Live demo: http://www.ecmazing.com/misc/test-removing-meta-element/

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I believe you should also be able to do this:

<noscript>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="..."> 
</noscript>

So, if you wrap your meta element in a NOSCRIPT element, it should only be parsed if JavaScript is disabled.

Read about the NOSCRIPT element here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/Element/noscript