onbeforeunload support detection

Question

I\'d like to check if the current browser supports the onbeforeunload event. The common javascript way to do this does not seem to work:

if (window.onbeforeu         


        

Answer 1

Cruster,

The "beforeunload" is not defined in the DOM-Events specification, this is a IE-specific feature. I think it was created in order to enable execution to be triggered before standard "unload" event. In other then IE browsers you could make use of capture-phase "unload" event listener thus getting code executed before for example an inline body onunload event.

Also, DOM doesn't offer any interfaces to test its support for a specific event, you can only test for support of an events group (MouseEvents, MutationEvents etc.)

Meanwhile you can also refer to DOM-Events specification http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Events/events.html (unfortunately not supported in IE)

Hope this information helps some