javascript - Is a Modal Confirm Box Using JQuery Possible?

Question

Looked around quite a bit, and can't seem to find a JQuery solution (maybe its just a limitation of JavaScript) for this:

<a href="somelink.php" 
   onclick="return confirm('Go to somelink.php?');">Click Here</a>

In the above example, when a user clicks on the link, it will only go to its href if the user clicks OK in the confirm box.

What I am trying to do is get a more modern look using a popup div. Perhaps something like this:

<a href="somelink.php" 
   onclick="return jq_confirm('Go to somelink.php?');">Click Here</a>

(Where jq_confirm is a custom JQuery confirm function that pops up a nice div with a YES/NO or OK/CANCEL button pair).

However, I cannot seem to find any such thing.

I have looked at some JQuery widget libraries etc which offer similar functionality, but none will wait for the response from the user (at least, not in the scenario described above), but instead they just proceed and take the user to the link (or run any JavaScript embedded in the href='' piece of the link). I suspect this is because while you can attach a callback function to many of these widgets to return a true/false value, the onclick event does not wait for a response (callbacks are asynchronous), thereby defeating the purpose of the confirm box.

What I need is the same kind of halt-all-javascript (modal) functionality that the default confirm() command provides. Is this possible in JQuery (or even in JavaScript)?

As I am not an expert in JavaScript nor in JQuery, I defer to you gurus out there. Any JQuery (or even pure JavaScript) solution is welcome (if possible).

Thanks -

Answer 1

I just had to solve the same problem. I wound up using the dialog widget from JQuery UI. I was able to implement this without using callbacks with the caveat that the dialog must be partially initialized in the click event handler for the link you want to use the confirmation functionality with (if you want to use this for more than one link). This is because the target URL for the link must be injected into the event handler for the confirmation button click.

Here's my solution, abstracted away to be suitable for an example. I use a CSS class to indicate which links should have the confirmation behavior.

<div id="dialog" title="Confirmation Required">
  Are you sure about this?
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function() {
    $("#dialog").dialog({
      autoOpen: false,
      modal: true
    });

  $(".confirmLink").click(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    var targetUrl = $(this).attr("href");

    $("#dialog").dialog({
      buttons : {
        "Confirm" : function() {
          window.location.href = targetUrl;
        },
        "Cancel" : function() {
          $(this).dialog("close");
        }
      }
    });

    $("#dialog").dialog("open");
  });




  }); // end of $(document).ready


</script>

<a class="confirmLink" href="http://someLinkWhichRequiresConfirmation.com">Click here</a>
<a class="confirmLink" href="http://anotherSensitiveLink">Or, you could click here</a>