Question

I realize this is likely a duplicate, but I’ve been googling/SOing for a day now and I can’t find a satisfactory answer. If there is an answer already on SO, please send me there.

I have a client that insists on having an exit message popup confirming they want to exit the site, just like Gmail does. (I’ve already tried arguing against it. He is immovable, so no comments about how that is bad practice please.)

I’ve found this code:

<script>
    window.onbeforeunload = function() {
        return 'Are you sure you want to exit?';
    }
<script>

But it runs no matter what I do – reloading the page, clicking on the nav, etc.

I just want the message to show up when the user closes the tab/browser. I suspect it’s something simple I’m missing but I’m not a Javascript expert.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

EDIT

Here’s what is working pretty good. Thanks to all!

var isLeavingSite = true;

//This would be called on each link/button click that navigates
$('a, input[type="submit"]').click(function(){
    isLeavingSite = false;
});

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
    if(isLeavingSite)
    return 'Are you sure you want to exit?';
}

Answer 1

Though it could be a fair amount of work (depending on how your site is written), you could do something like this (pseudo-code):

var isLeavingSite = true;

//This would be called on each link/button click that navigates
function GlobalLinkHandler()
{
    isLeavingSite = false;
}

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
    if(isLeavingSite)
    return 'Are you sure you want to exit?';
}

If you’re using jQuery, you can use the code below to flip the isLeavingSite flag:

$('a, input[type="submit"]').click(function(){ isLeavingSite = false; });