[RESOLVED] Prevent Window from Closing

[_Yoyo]

Hi!

How can I, from PHP, prevent a window to be closed? I mean, if certain condition is met (a cookie exists for instance) write some javascript or whatever to prevent the browser to be closed before some action is executed...

If(cookie)
   do not allow window to be closed because session details gotta be saved to a DB before that;
else
  Go ahead, close it!;

[RudiVisser]

As far as I can see, you answered your own question.. Or do you want an implementation example?

[the182guy]

IMO it's a waste of time. Trying to prevent the window closing is just going to annoy users.

Aside from that, even if you are successful using Javascript, some users may be using a browser that does not support Javascript, or they may simply have it disabled. They may even have cookies disabled or blocked for untrusted websites.

I suggest you just use some sort og Logout button, which can direct to a page that executes your set cookie code.

[_Yoyo]

IMO it's a waste of time. Trying to prevent the window closing is just going to annoy users.

Aside from that, even if you are successful using Javascript, some users may be using a browser that does not support Javascript, or they may simply have it disabled. They may even have cookies disabled or blocked for untrusted websites.

I suggest you just use some sort og Logout button, which can direct to a page that executes your set cookie code.

The disabling of javascript or cookies is not an issue. I got that covered. My users often careless about buttons, so i'm losing log data everytime they don't use the 'logout' button.

Some working code would be of great help

[RudiVisser]

Should you care to explain your *actual* issue further, we may be able to assist you in finding a more suited solution.

[_Yoyo]

Thanks for answering. Everytime a user log into the system, I record to a DB user, date log in, time log in, date log out and time logout. As you may know by now, when they log in I can record the data, but if they just decide to close the browser ignoring the "log Out" button, date logout and time logout won't be recorded.

[penagate]

You can derive the logout time as (last action time + session time-to-live). TTL is arbitrary; usually defined as 15 minutes or thereabouts.

[_Yoyo]

Thaks for the response penagate. Would you please give me an example of what you're talking about

[penagate]

Well, if you record every authenticated page request in a database along with a timestamp, then you shouldn't need an automatic log out facility.

Add this to every public page:

require 'includes/log.php'; 

log.php:

<?php
  # some code to prevent this file from being requested directly
  # ...

  sql(
    'INSERT INTO accesslog (userid, pageuri) VALUES (?,?)',
    $userid,
    $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']
  );
?>

Something like that. Vary according to taste.

[_Yoyo]

Awesome idea! Thanx!!!!