Disable the postback on an <ASP:LinkButton>

Question

I have an ASP.NET linkbutton control on my form. I would like to use it for javascript on the client side and prevent it from posting back to the server. (I'd like to use the linkbutton control so I can skin it and disable it in some cases, so a straight up tag is not preferred).

How do I prevent it from posting back to the server?

Brewmaster

Answer 1

ASPX code:

<asp:LinkButton ID="someID" runat="server" Text="clicky"></asp:LinkButton>

Code behind:

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page 
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        someID.Attributes.Add("onClick", "return false;");
    }
}

What renders as HTML is:

<a onclick="return false;" id="someID" href="javascript:__doPostBack('someID','')">clicky</a>

In this case, what happens is the onclick functionality becomes your validator. If it is false, the "href" link is not executed; however, if it is true the href will get executed. This eliminates your post back.

Around

<asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton5" runat="server" OnClick="A_Click" CssClass="linkOff" Text="Edit"></asp:LinkButton> and adding the above, when clicking nothing happens :/ – Spall

perfect, been struggling with this for a while as didn't want the __postback called instead called some JS. much appreciated. – Sidelong

Answer 2

This may sound like an unhelpful answer ... But why are you using a LinkButton for something purely client-side? Use a standard HTML anchor tag and set its onclick action to your Javascript.

If you need the server to generate the text of that link, then use an asp:Label as the content between the anchor's start and end tags.

If you need to dynamically change the script behavior based on server-side code, consider asp:Literal as a technique.

But unless you're doing server-side activity from the Click event of the LinkButton, there just doesn't seem to be much point to using it here.

Loblolly

I agree. Primarily, I want to use a skin I've already created for linkbuttons used elsewhere. – Brewmaster

Can you not modify the skin, or base the styles for the given anchor off those used in the skin? – Loblolly

You might favor a linkbutton even if server postback is disabled when: 1) You still desire the benefit of a control implementing INamingContainer. Example, you have multiple user controls on a page where each contains a LinkButton that needs a unique ID. 2) You want to keep asp client validation. – Babita

Also, sometimes LinkButtons are used as a target control for an ajax extender control – Ridglee

You may want this to dynamically generate the buttons. However you can use new HtmlGenericControl() – Foghorn

Answer 3

You can do it too

...LinkButton ID="BtnForgotPassword" runat="server" OnClientClick="ChangeText('1');return false"...

And it stop the link button postback

Hercule

It works, but the problem is, if you have some operation going on such as deleting the record after modal pop-up, this doesn't work at all. It just simply refreshes the page. Nothing else. – Chassidychassin

Answer 4

Just set href="#"

<asp:LinkButton ID="myLink" runat="server" href="#">Click Me</asp:LinkButton>

Radioluminescence

from what i tested, this will cause the page scrolls up the top. – Cuttie

Answer 5

I think you should investigate using a HyperLink control. It's a server-side control (so you can manipulate visibility and such from code), but it omits a regular ol' anchor tag and doesn't cause a postback.

Hydrodynamic

Answer 6

Just been through this, the correct way to do it is to use:

1. OnClientClick
2. return false

as in the following example line of code:

<asp:LinkButton ID="lbtnNext" runat="server" OnClientClick="findAllOccurences(); return false;" />

Gurango

Answer 7

In C#, you'd do something like this:

MyButton.Attributes.Add("onclick", "put your javascript here including... return false;");

Nonrigid

Answer 8

To avoid refresh of page, if the return false is not working with asp:LinkButton use

href="javascript: void;"

or

href="#"

along with OnClientClick="return false;"

<asp:LinkButton ID="linkPrint" runat="server" CausesValidation="False" href="javascript: void;"
        OnClientClick="javascript:self.print();return false;">Print</asp:LinkButton>

Above is code will call the browser print without refresh the page.

Batting

Answer 9

call java script function on onclick event.

Jeneejenei

Answer 10

Instead of implement the attribute:

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page{
 protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
 {
    someID.Attributes.Add("onClick", "return false;");
 }}

Use:

OnClientClick="return false;"

inside of asp:LinkButton tag

Chondriosome

Answer 11

Something else you can do, if you want to preserve your scroll position is this:

<asp:LinkButton runat="server" id="someId" href="javascript: void;" Text="Click Me" />

Richardson

Answer 12

Why not use an empty ajax update panel and wire the linkbutton's click event to it? This way only the update panel will get updated, thus avoiding a postback and allowing you to run your javascript

Pax

Answer 13

Have you tried to use the OnClientClick?

var myLinkButton = new LinkButton { Text = "Click Here", OnClientClick = "JavaScript: return false;" };

<asp:LinkButton ID="someID" runat="server" Text="clicky" OnClientClick="JavaScript: return false;"></asp:LinkButton>

Matchmark

Answer 14

In the jquery ready function you can do something like below -

var hrefcode = $('a[id*=linkbutton]').attr('href').split(':');
var onclickcode = "javascript: if`(Condition()) {" + hrefcode[1] + ";}";
$('a[id*=linkbutton]').attr('href', onclickcode);

Fredrick

Welcome to StackOverflow! Since the OP did not mention JQuery, your answer is slightly off-topic. To make the answer better, you could include additional context about how to incorporate JQuery here. On the other hand, since the question was asked and answered (many times) 5 years ago, only very on-topic answers would be useful at this point. – Dagnydago

Answer 15

You might also want to have the client-side function return false.

<asp:LinkButton runat="server" id="button" Text="Click Me" OnClick="myfunction();return false;" AutoPostBack="false" />

You might also consider:

<span runat="server" id="clickableSpan" onclick="myfunction();" class="clickable">Click Me</span>

I use the clickable class to set things like pointer, color, etc. so that its appearance is similar to an anchor tag, but I don't have to worry about it getting posted back or having to do the href="javascript:void(0);" trick.

Morganica

OnClick binds the server-side event, not the client side event. onclientclick is the client event – Byrd

Answer 16

No one seems to be doing it like this:

createEventLinkButton.Attributes.Add("onClick", " if (this.innerHTML == 'Please Wait') { return false; } else {  this.innerHTML='Please Wait'; }");

This seems to be the only way that works.

Grandiloquence

Answer 17

use html link instead of asp link and you can use label in between html link for server side control

Pyxie