Detecting Unsaved Changes

I have a requirement to implement an "Unsaved Changes" prompt in an ASP .Net application. If a user modifies controls on a web form, and attempts to navigate away before saving, a prompt should appear warning them that they have unsaved changes, and give them the option to cancel and stay on the current page. The prompt should not display if the user hasn't touched any of the controls.

Ideally I'd like to implement this in JavaScript, but before I go down the path of rolling my own code, are there any existing frameworks or recommended design patterns for achieving this? Ideally I'd like something that can easily be reused across multiple pages with minimal changes.

Using jQuery:

var _isDirty = false;
$("input[type='text']").change(function(){
  _isDirty = true;
});
// replicate for other input types and selects

Combine with onunload/onbeforeunload methods as required.

From the comments, the following references all input fields, without duplicating code:

$(':input').change(function () {

Using $(":input") refers to all input, textarea, select, and button elements.

One piece of the puzzle:

/**
 * Determines if a form is dirty by comparing the current value of each element
 * with its default value.
 *
 * @param {Form} form the form to be checked.
 * @return {Boolean} <code>true</code> if the form is dirty, <code>false</code>
 *                   otherwise.
 */
function formIsDirty(form) {
  for (var i = 0; i < form.elements.length; i++) {
    var element = form.elements[i];
    var type = element.type;
    if (type == "checkbox" || type == "radio") {
      if (element.checked != element.defaultChecked) {
        return true;
      }
    }
    else if (type == "hidden" || type == "password" ||
             type == "text" || type == "textarea") {
      if (element.value != element.defaultValue) {
        return true;
      }
    }
    else if (type == "select-one" || type == "select-multiple") {
      for (var j = 0; j < element.options.length; j++) {
        if (element.options[j].selected !=
            element.options[j].defaultSelected) {
          return true;
        }
      }
    }
  }
  return false;
}

And another:

window.onbeforeunload = function(e) {
  e = e || window.event;  
  if (formIsDirty(document.forms["someForm"])) {
    // For IE and Firefox
    if (e) {
      e.returnValue = "You have unsaved changes.";
    }
    // For Safari
    return "You have unsaved changes.";
  }
};

Wrap it all up, and what do you get?

var confirmExitIfModified = (function() {
  function formIsDirty(form) {
    // ...as above
  }

  return function(form, message) {
    window.onbeforeunload = function(e) {
      e = e || window.event;
      if (formIsDirty(document.forms[form])) {
        // For IE and Firefox
        if (e) {
          e.returnValue = message;
        }
        // For Safari
        return message;
      }
    };
  };
})();

confirmExitIfModified("someForm", "You have unsaved changes.");

You'll probably also want to change the registration of the beforeunload event handler to use LIBRARY_OF_CHOICE's event registration.

In the .aspx page, you need a Javascript function to tell whether or not the form info is "dirty"

<script language="javascript">
    var isDirty = false;

    function setDirty() {
        isDirty = true;
    }

    function checkSave() {
        var sSave;
        if (isDirty == true) {
            sSave = window.confirm("You have some changes that have not been saved. Click OK to save now or CANCEL to continue without saving.");
            if (sSave == true) {
                document.getElementById('__EVENTTARGET').value = 'btnSubmit';
                document.getElementById('__EVENTARGUMENT').value = 'Click';  
                window.document.formName.submit();
            } else {
                 return true;
            }
        }
    }
</script>
<body class="StandardBody" onunload="checkSave()">

and in the codebehind, add the triggers to the input fields as well as resets on the submission/cancel buttons....

btnSubmit.Attributes.Add("onclick", "isDirty = 0;");
btnCancel.Attributes.Add("onclick", "isDirty = 0;");
txtName.Attributes.Add("onchange", "setDirty();");
txtAddress.Attributes.Add("onchange", "setDirty();");
//etc..

The following uses the browser's onbeforeunload function and jquery to capture any onchange event. IT also looks for any submit or reset buttons to reset the flag indicating changes have occurred.

dataChanged = 0;     // global variable flags unsaved changes      

function bindForChange(){    
     $('input,checkbox,textarea,radio,select').bind('change',function(event) { dataChanged = 1})
     $(':reset,:submit').bind('click',function(event) { dataChanged = 0 })
}


function askConfirm(){  
    if (dataChanged){ 
        return "You have some unsaved changes.  Press OK to continue without saving." 
    }
}

window.onbeforeunload = askConfirm;
window.onload = bindForChange;

Thanks for the replies everyone. I ended up implementing a solution using JQuery and the Protect-Data plug-in. This allows me to automatically apply monitoring to all controls on a page.

There are a few caveats however, especially when dealing with an ASP .Net application:

When a user chooses the cancel option, the doPostBack function will throw a JavaScript error. I had to manually put a try-catch around the .submit call within doPostBack to suppress it.
On some pages, a user could perform an action that performs a postback to the same page, but isn't a save. This results in any JavaScript logic resetting, so it thinks nothing has changed after the postback when something may have. I had to implement a hidden textbox that gets posted back with the page, and is used to hold a simple boolean value indicating whether the data is dirty. This gets persisted across postbacks.
You may want some postbacks on the page to not trigger the dialog, such as a Save button. In this case, you can use JQuery to add an OnClick function which sets window.onbeforeunload to null.

Hopefully this is helpful for anyone else who has to implement something similar.

Detecting Unsaved Changes

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