detecting browser close all conditions

Question

This question has been asked many times before but none of the previous ones hit all the issues. I have a shopping cart that I store in session state. I'd like to detect when the user leaves the site so I can ask if they'd like to save their cart. I'd prefer not to automatically store the cart, I hate sites that I re-visit and there's all this leftover stuff in the cart that I'm no longer interested in.

I've tried onbeforeunload but it fires when the user hits the back/previous buttons. Is there any way from within onbeforeunload I can determine the url where the browser will be going next? Then I can check if it is local and ignore it, otherwise if leaving the site for good a prompt can be displayed.

Maybe I am not getting something? How do you handle this situation?

Answer 1

How do you handle this situation?

You don't.

Use a session timeout to clear the shopping cart.

Besides, what if the user accidentally closes the site? Their cart would automatically be cleared, which makes for terrible UX.