Activating OnBeforeUnload ONLY when field values have changed

Question

What I'm trying to achieve is to Warn the user of unsaved changes if he/she tries to close a page or navigate away from it without saving first.

I've managed to get the OnBeforeUnload() dialog to pop-up... but I don't want it to be displayed at all if the user hasn't modified any field values. For this, I'm using this hidden input field called is_modified that starts with a default value of false and flips to true when any field is edited.

I tried to bind the change event to this is_modified field to try and detect for value change... and only then activate OnBeforeUnload.

$( '#is_modified' ).change( function() {
    if( $( '#is_modified' ).val() == 'true' )
        window.onbeforeunload = function() { return "You have unsaved changes."; }
});

But from what I figure is that the change() event works only after these 3 steps - a field receives focus, a value is changed and the field looses focus. In case of the hidden input field, I'm not sure how this receiving and loosing focus part works! Hence, the onbeforeunload function is never being activated.

Can anyone suggest a way to maintain a trigger over is_modified?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I had a similar requirement so came up with following jQuery script:

$(document).ready(function() {
    needToConfirm = false; 
    window.onbeforeunload = askConfirm;
});

function askConfirm() {
    if (needToConfirm) {
        // Put your custom message here 
        return "Your unsaved data will be lost."; 
    }
}

$("select,input,textarea").change(function() {
    needToConfirm = true;
});

The above code checks the needToConfirm variable, if its true then it will display warning message. Whenever input, select or textarea elements value is changed, needToConfirm variable is set to true.

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PS: Firefox > 4 don't allow custom message for onbeforeunload.
Reference: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=588292

---

UPDATE: If you are a performance freak, you will love @KyleMit's suggestion. He wrote a jQuery extension only() which will be executed only once for any element.

$.fn.only = function (events, callback) {
    //The handler is executed at most once for all elements for all event types.
    var $this = $(this).on(events, myCallback);
    function myCallback(e) {
        $this.off(events, myCallback);
        callback.call(this, e);
    }
    return this
};    

$(":input").only('change', function() {
    needToConfirm = true;
});