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Onunload solution required

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Apr 04.2006

Hi All

I have a website that uses a database that is also being accessed by in-house personnel over a network.

On the website when a user logs in I set intstatus in the database to 1 so that internal personnel can see that the account is currently being updated on the web and when the user clicks on the logout link I set intstatus back to 0.

My problem is how to set intstatus to 0 if the user either closes their browser or browses to a different web page, I thought of using a simple onunload event that redirects to a page that sets intstatus to 0 and then closes itself however this fails because the onunload event triggers even when the user clicks on a link to another page within the website.

To summarise I’m really looking for a way to activate a script if the user a) closes their broswer or b) goes to an external website.

Any help at all greatly appreciated.

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6 Comments(s) ↴

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@A1ien51Apr 04.2006 — look into onbeforeunload

You really need to use a server side solution with session end since you can not rely on the client.

Eric
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@fvillenaauthorApr 04.2006 — Thanks Eric

I agree a serever side solution may be required but now that I've started looking into this I'd be interested to get a javascript solution.

According to [URL]http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/events/onbeforeunload.asp[/URL] onbeforeunload like on unload will kick in when the user goes to another web page or submits a form etc.
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@felgallApr 04.2006 — Only in browsers with Javascript enabled and which understand the non-standard onbeforeunload event.

onunload will work in lots more browsers than onbeforeunload because it is a standard event however it only has time to run one or two Javascript commands before the page closes.
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@fvillenaauthorApr 05.2006 — Hi Stephen

I would have no problem with using onunload if I could find a way to only execute the script if the user either closes the browser or navigates to a page outwith my own website.

Anybody got any ideas?
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@VladdyApr 05.2006 — Trying to rely on the client will only cause you headaches:

- what if someone loses power

- what if the browser crashes

Just implement server side session timeout - one simple solution for all contingencies.
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@felgallApr 05.2006 — Server side session timeout is the way all of the major web sites handle it because it is the only way that is reliable.
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