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I have an application where the user enters a good deal of information. Accordingly, it is important to use the beforeunload event so that the user doesn't accidentally leave the page and lose their progress. However, the app also requires download links and the problem is that clicking those download links triggers the beforeunload event even though the download does not cause the user to leave the page.

How can I set this up so that the the user has to confirm before leaving the page but that this confirmation is not triggered by clicking a download link?

You can see the whole thing in a reproducible example here:

jrdnmdhl
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2 Answers2

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This is kind of a hack, but I think it will prevent the beforeunload event from firing on your download links:

<a href="somefile.txt" download target="_blank">Download</a>

Basically, add the download attribute to the element and a target attribute.

JoshG
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  • Thanks, this does it! Though it does have some negative side effects (safari treats it as a pop-up and tries to block it). Any way to avoid that? – jrdnmdhl Feb 13 '19 at 04:04
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You can use required attribute at <input> and/or <textarea> elements to prevent <form> submission until the required fields have been completed.

See

also

guest271314
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