browser closing 2

[wekoweko]

hi there, wanted to ask if there is any method existent in html that would automatically detect if the user closes his browser? need to change his log status on a back-end database and if he closes the browser am worried that the status will never be updated to logged off? any of you know any tricks to avoid this? thanks

 

[Chacalinc]

Server side scripting will never know what's going on with the client side. So you will need client-side scripting with javascript to do it... this can be done with "onUnload(do_something_or_call_a_thanks_window)", thanks windows could have some script to logoff in your back-end.

The trick here is to make the main window open a popup window (the thanks window) in order to issue your "logoff" script at server side.

hope this helps.

 

[wekoweko]

that is not a bad idea at all thanks dude

 

[ChrisHunt]

You (probably) can't guarantee that your end-users have Javascript switched on, that the thanks window won't be stopped by some popup-blockers, or that they don't just bang out of the site - say when a dial-up connection goes down or their PC has a power outage.

So in addition to Chacalinc's sensible solution, you should probably have some failsafe in there too - maybe logging somebody off automatically if you haven't heard from them for, say, 30 minutes.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[wekoweko]

hey thanks, yeah as a backup, i also asked the oracle forum(because we're using oracle 91 obviously ) if theres a way to have a field automatically update itself after a certain amount of time, thanks again

 

[ChrisHunt]

You could update a date/time field every time you get a request from a logged on user, to show the time when they were last active. Then have a procedure run every few minutes using DBMS_JOB that updates any user who is supposedly logged on, but has been inactive for more than x minutes.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[wekoweko]

now that is a great idea, thanks a lot, just hope it wont be too much of an overhead on the system, thanks again dude