Waiting event before closing window using onbeforeunload

Question

Context :

I have developped an application which require authentification. This application uses events for dialoging with a server. When the server answer, some events are send to the client (UI).

Problem :

When the user close the page, it is necessary to make a logout on the server. With my architecture, it's easy to call a method which perform this logout. But i would like that the user show the logout progress before closing the webpage. In fact, i would like to close the webpage only when a specific event (for example : disconnection_success), is well received. Moreover, it's verry important to not launcg another webpage because event is received on the first webpage when the logout is successfull. (Because dialog is done throw XMLHttpRequest)

Test :

I already do some test using onbeforeunload but it seems that is difficult to customize the popup.

Do you have some ideas to resolve the problem ?

BR

Answer 1

There are some issues with this, but you're on the right track. You're right in that you should use onbeforeunload because it is the only event that you can have triggered upon the closing of the browser window. (I know you can use onunload but at that point you have no time to do anything.) The issue here is how much code do you want to execute. The onbeforeunload doesn't allow you much time before it starts to unload the page.

BTW, there are two different scenarios with onbeforeunload:

• If you return a string inside the onbeforeunload event, it creates the pop-up that you were referring to. The issue here is that with the pop-up, you won't have enough time to execute code
• The other option is not returning anything. Instead, call your logout methods. This should give your code enough time to execute before closing

I actually had a question very similar to this and ended up solving it myself: How to logout during onbeforeunload/onunload using Javascript

In your question you state that you want to have a progress bar displayed when they log-out. This is impossible to do when the user closes the browser. At the moment they close their window, you have lost all control, except for in the onbeforeunload (and onunload but don't use this), and that is why your code needs to be executed there. With that being said, you could anchor your logout button (I'm assuming you have one on your application) and have it display the progress bar.

Just think about what could happen if you actually did have that kind of control - where you could pop up windows and progress bars when the user is trying to close their browser window. You could pop up anything and restrict the user from having any reliable functionality. That is why it was programmed that the onbeforeunload (and unload) events are the only ones possible to access the closing of a browser. These events have some pretty strict guidelines to them that prevent any kind of possible mis-use. I understand the problem you're having, I was there and it stinks, but I think that is your only option if you were going to use onbeforeunload.