Bugs and Suggestions

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

20-Dec-10 9:29

Currently, on the article editor at the following URL...

http://www.codeproject.com/script/Articles/Edit.aspx?aid=xxxxx

One can spend a long time editing an article, and then an accidental "navigate" off the page causes all that work to be LOST!

This is especially problematic because the editor often loses key-focus, and browsers often map the backspace key to "back", so when the editor loses key focus while you are backspacing, often it causes a "back navigate" which then loses the article content.

However, there is an EASY fix for this and other problems related to navigating away. Simply set up a javascript handler for "onbeforeunload". If the user accidentally tries to navigate off the page, the dialog will give them the chance to cancel the navigate before it destroys all their work. All that's needed is the following javascript added to the page:

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
    return 'You have unsaved changes!';
}

Then, a small javascript handler should be added to the buttons which "validly" leave the page which turn off this handler.

Chris Maunder20-Dec-10 16:36

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

20-Dec-10 16:36

We already have this in place. If it's not working for you, which browser are you using?

cheers,
Chris Maunder

The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP

David Jeske20-Dec-10 20:35

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

20-Dec-10 20:35

Hmm. I was using google chrome when it ate a bunch of my work by navigating away. This was on first time article creation if that is handles any differently than editing.

I'm not sure what caused it to navigate away. I think I was hitting backspace a bunch and somehow the editor dropped my cursor, causing the browser to treat the backspace as 'back'. However, I work on think pad keyboards, so I sometimes accidentally hit the navigation buttons which they locate near the arrow keys.

I'll see if I can reproduce it later.

Chris Maunder21-Dec-10 2:15

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

21-Dec-10 2:15

I'll double check with the latest build of Chrome and see if it's a Chrome specific issue.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP

David Jeske21-Dec-10 9:04

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

21-Dec-10 9:04

I just tested this myself.

In Firefox (3.6.10) I correctly receive the onbeforeunload warning dialog.

In Chrome (8.0.552.224), I do not receive an onbeforeunload warning dialog when clicking "back" from the editor.

Apparently there is an "incompatible" way to do onbeforeunload, and a "compatible" way. It looks like in Chrome/Safari/Webkit, you need to do:

function stopUnload() {
return "warning";
}

window.onbeforeunload = stopUnload;

Instead of attachEvent().

http://www.webreference.com/dhtml/diner/beforeunload/bunload4.html

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=4422

Chris Maunder21-Dec-10 13:37

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

21-Dec-10 13:37

Yes, I was actually going through my code and in one place I have the traditional method, and in another the "window.onbeforeunload = stopUnload" method with a note "must be done this way".

Needless to say I'm going back and making the code consistent Wink | ;)

cheers,
Chris Maunder

The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP

David Jeske21-Dec-10 15:31

Re: add an "onbeforeunload" handler to the article editor to prevent accidental loss

21-Dec-10 15:31

Thanks for fixing this.... Codeproject is an excellent site!

Nish Nishant21-Dec-10 5:00

Nish Nishant

21-Dec-10 5:00

Chris,

My guess is that it doesn't work when the page never finishes loading (usually happens when one of the ad banners is hung). So when this happens, and you have typed into the text box and then accidentally hit the Back button or did something else that causes the page to navigate away, you risk losing all the text you typed in.

Regards,
Nish

My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com

Forum notifications and Microsoft's SmartScreen filter

dasblinkenlight20-Dec-10 8:13

dasblinkenlight

20-Dec-10 8:13

When forum notifications from the code project arrive to my mailbox at hotmail.com, I get a nasty-looking warning from their SmartScreen:

"This message looks suspicious to our SmartScreen filters."

The warning has a pink background and a little red shield icon, hinting that the message may contain a security threat of some sort. When I click the [dismiss] button of the warning, the logo (logo225x40.gif) appears, but the warning stays.

It would be nice if you could figure out what part of the e-mail "trips" the SmartScreen, and re-arrange the auto-generated content in a different way, so that the warning does not appear.

Re: Forum notifications and Microsoft's SmartScreen filter

Slacker00720-Dec-10 9:29

Re: Forum notifications and Microsoft's SmartScreen filter

20-Dec-10 9:29

You probably already know this but just add the address(sender) to your safe/white list. Problem solved...that's what I did and now I don't get those messages anymore.

dasblinkenlight20-Dec-10 9:34

dasblinkenlight

20-Dec-10 9:34

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, this did not fix my problem: although "@codeproject.com" filter is on my "white list", the warning from SmartScreen still comes up.

Re: Forum notifications and Microsoft's SmartScreen filter

Slacker00720-Dec-10 9:39

Re: Forum notifications and Microsoft's SmartScreen filter

20-Dec-10 9:39

Sorry to hear. I just checked my Hotmail account and everythings is fine. My notification of your reply did not trigger the SmartScreen super-duper interceptor radar thingy. Smile | :)

Chris Maunder20-Dec-10 16:37

BUG: Voting Stars Not Showing Properly

20-Dec-10 16:37

We'll look into it here to see if there's anything obvious (or even unobvious) we canb do our end

cheers,
Chris Maunder

The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP

Slacker00720-Dec-10 7:35

20-Dec-10 7:35

The voting stars are not showing properly...at least with this article: See Here[^]

When you hove over the stars the chart goes behind everything else.

I am using Windows XP SP3 w/IE 7.

Luc Pattyn20-Dec-10 7:39

Luc Pattyn

20-Dec-10 7:39

That looks very similar to a problem I reported the day the new article header got launched: a random tooltip may be showing, as if the mouse was over a widget (e.g. the bookmark widget). Never had it happen on the voting bar though. Chris has looked into it already and called it a timing issue. Anyway, reloading the page seems to suffice.

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, improve readability, and make me actually look at the code.

Slacker00720-Dec-10 7:44

20-Dec-10 7:44

Luc Pattyn wrote:
Anyway, reloading the page seems to suffice.

Sorry, no cigar...still doesn't work. Confused | :confused:

Luc Pattyn20-Dec-10 7:50

Luc Pattyn

20-Dec-10 7:50

Interesting.
I can't get it to fail (FF3.6, Chr7, IE7; all on Vista).

Try CTRL/F5!

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, improve readability, and make me actually look at the code.

Slacker00720-Dec-10 8:00

20-Dec-10 8:00

Luc Pattyn wrote:
Try CTRL/F5!

I did...twice...no luck.

Luc Pattyn wrote:
all on Vista

This might be the problem. Vista and Windows 7 might be working fine but XP may not. I wonder if this site is tested on XP SP3 or just Windows 7?

Luc Pattyn20-Dec-10 8:24

Luc Pattyn

20-Dec-10 8:24

Slacker007 wrote:
all on Vista...This might be the problem

I doubt it.

Slacker007 wrote:
I wonder if

I don't know. My guess is they use Win7+Chr7 most of the time. Not sure though.

OTOH, if it really is a timing problem, then CP staff themselves are worst positioned to solve it as they are bound to get best server response.

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, improve readability, and make me actually look at the code.

AspDotNetDev20-Dec-10 7:45

AspDotNetDev

20-Dec-10 7:45

Looks fine to me (IE8/Windows 7).

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