jQuery dialog confirm before opening link

Question

I have a table populated with data from the database, where each row has a cell with an anchor element inside. This anchor would lead to the same page but with a query string telling php which row contains the data it should delete.

I need a jQuery dialog box to be opened when the user clicks an anchor asking him to confirm his intentions BEFORE loading the url. The 'cancel' button should close the dialog and do nothing. The 'OK' button should then let the url open.

Any help is highly appreciated.

// edit with 'what I have tried'. It's my first time messing with jQuery and time for studying is running out... =(

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
var $dialog = jQuery('<div class='msg_dialog'></div>')
    .html('Are you sure you want to do this?')
    .dialog({
        autoOpen: false,
        title: 'Confirm action',
        buttons: [{
            text: "Cancel",
            click: function(){
                jQuery(this).dialog("close");
            }
        }] // didn't even try the OK button since I couldn't even get the dialog opened
    });

jQuery('#confirm_del').click(function(){
    $dialog.dialog('open');
    return false;
});
});

Careerist

What have you tried? – Arturo

Sorry. I have edited my question. – Careerist

You should use POST, not GET (query string). Read this. (There is a comment - That's why you should always POST for changing actions. - sums it up.) – Callihan

Interesting link, thanks. Well, this is part of a wordpress plugin I'm coding. The user must be logged in to see anything, so I believe no bot will ever be able to get in without discovering some admin password. Anyway, how can I use POST in a situation where action is changed by the click of a link, not by submitting a form? – Careerist

Answer 1

$("a").on("click", function(e) {
    var link = this;

    e.preventDefault();

    $("<div>Are you sure you want to continue?</div>").dialog({
        buttons: {
            "Ok": function() {
                window.location = link.href;
            },
            "Cancel": function() {
                $(this).dialog("close");
            }
        }
    });
});

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/uRGJD/

(Redirecting to Google won't work on JSFiddle but should work on a normal page)

Blockage

You can use top.location in place of window.location to navigate to Google: jsfiddle.net/gilly3/uRGJD/1 – Dolley

Many thanks for your input. But I've tried your suggestion and it didn't work for me. I had to change selector "a" to ".myclass" because the number of rows is not known. Might this be the problem? – Careerist

I know jQuery is loaded and functioning because the link stoped working (e.preventDefault()), but the dialog box won't pop up. Any suggestions? – Careerist

Are you loading jQueryUI as well? – Blockage

Yes. I forgot to mention it's a wordpress plugin, so I use these two lines to register and enqueue the script: wp_register_script( 'dialog-box', plugins_url( '/js/dialog-box.js', FILE ), array( 'jquery-ui-core' ) ); wp_enqueue_script( 'dialog-box' ); – Careerist

Hmm... You could try replacing the locally referenced scripts with a CDN like in the JSFiddle to see if that helps. Beyond that it's hard for me to say without seeing the generated HTML. – Blockage

Ok, I've found the problem: 'jquery-ui-core' is just the base core, which does not include dialog. Loading 'jquery-ui-dialog' fixed it. But now the dialog has no style. I need to find out how to load an external .css style for it or maybe make my own. Any ideas? – Careerist

still havn't had the time to find out how to load style for the dialog box within a wordpress plugin written as class, but I'm accepting your answer since it's technically working. Thanks again. – Careerist

Answer 2

how about using:

<a href="<?php echo 'your_url'.'?query_string='.$query_string ?>" onclick="return confirm('Are your sure?')">
     Go
</a>

Thimble

doent the question specifically say jQuery Dialog? – Insistency

yeah, the question does say jQuery Dialog and I think a lot of users will be able to provide such answer easily but focusing on the problem at hand, I just thought it might be helpful to suggest something a bit simpler which anyway still solves the problem. :) – Thimble

Thanks for the input. That looks nice. But what I'm coding is not a template page. It's a wordpress plugin in which it looks like I can't get in and out php, so I couldn't solve the quotes dilemma. – Careerist

best answer.. why complicated things when u get the job in 1 line of code – Fabled

Exactly what I was looking for – Eparch

Answer 3

You can create a dialog that creates the buttons for you, but I like the approach where you create the buttons yourself so that you can use real links instead of using javascript to navigate.

Working demo: http://jsfiddle.net/gilly3/sdzbB/

<div id="dialog-confirm">
    <div class="message">Are you sure?</div>
    <div class="buttons">
        <a class="cancel" href="#">Cancel</a>
        <a class="ok" href="#">Ok</a>
    </div>
</div>

$("#dialog-confirm").dialog({ autoOpen: false }).find("a.cancel").click(function(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    $("#dialog-confirm").dialog("close");
});
$("a[href]:not(#dialog-confirm a)").click(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    $("#dialog-confirm")
        .dialog("option", "title", $(this).text())
        .dialog("open")
        .find("a.ok").attr({
            href: this.href,
            target: this.target
        });
});

The benefit to using a real link instead of location.href = link, is that you get all kinds of built in goodies, like mouse shortcuts to open the link in a new tab, the ability to drag the link to the bookmarks bar or desktop, the ability to copy the link to the clipboard, keyboard access via tab, etc.

Dolley

This is a good answer. However, the Jquery code on your answer did not work for me, but the one on your JsFiddle worked. – Angstrom

@DavidAddoteye - thanks. I've copied the jsfiddle code into my answer. – Dolley

Answer 4

You should prevent default behavior of the link which can be done like this code.

$('.tableId tr td a').click(function(event){
    //code to display confirmation dialog  
    event.preventDefault();

  }      

You can use this JQuery plugin for confirmation dialog.http://jqueryui.com/demos/dialog/#modal-confirmation

Mendoza