Warning users of unsaved changes

[matbind]

Hi, thanks for this great package!

It would be really helpful to have built-in functionality for warning users when they attempt to navigate away from a page with unsaved changes in the CKEditor field, similar to the default behavior in Nova's standard fields (like Text).

If this feature is out of scope, I’d be happy to implement it using custom JavaScript. However, I’d need to access the CKEditor instance. Could you provide guidance on the intended (or easiest) way to access the CKEditor instance within Nova?
It seems one can get the instance through the HTML element but this is cumbersome.

Thanks in advance!

[mostafaznv]

Hi @matbind,

Your requested feature has been implemented, and you can try it using the latest version.
Please update to 7.7.0 and let me know the result.

This feature is enabled by default; however, you can disable it using the configuration file or CKEditor’s methods.

For more information, please take a look at this and this.

nova-ckeditor/config/nova-ckeditor.php

Line 117 in a7542e0

'alert-before-unsaved-changes' => true,

[matbind]

Works like a charm! It still shows the alert even if the user reverts their changes, but this is definitely good enough. Thanks
for this amazingly quick response! You're the man!

[matbind]

Hi again @mostafaznv,

I just noticed that the alert only shows up when reloading the page, not when going back or navigating somewhere else within Nova. In this regard it is different from e.g. Text. Could you maybe extend the feature to also include these cases?

Thanks!

[mostafaznv]

Hi again.

I can detect when a user reverts their changes, but I didn’t implement it for two reasons:

1. Laravel Nova doesn’t detect it either.
2. For large content, it could add unnecessary overhead.

As for the browser’s back button, it should be working now. Please update to the latest version (7.7.1).
I am now fully relying on Nova’s built-in features to prevent users from leaving the current page.

[matbind]

Hi, and thanks for another quick update!

You are absolutely right about reverted changes, Nova doesn't detect it either, my mistake! :)

I tried 7.7.1 and made the following observations:

• Back button: The browser navigates back even when clicking cancel in the dialog
• Clicking a link in Nova's sidebar: The browser shows the dialog multiple times when clicking cancel. Looks like it shows it twice if one editor field is present, and one more time for each additional editor field (a little extrapolation here on my part: I have two editor fields in my resource and the dialog is shown three times)
• Page reload works like intended
• Closing browser tab works like intended

I tested this in Chrome and Firefox.

Could you please take another look?

[mostafaznv]

Hi again,
Thank you for your detailed report and investigation. I really appreciate it.
Apologies for shipping a buggy feature. I’ve been quite busy lately and didn’t have much time to check it carefully.
I’ve now published another fix, and hopefully, this will be the last one :D

Please check it again, and let me know if the issue is resolved.

[matbind]

Hi!

It works great now, thank you for the quick responses. No worries about you being busy, you are doing all this for free which makes your response times all the more insane.
Glad that I was able to contribute to this great package, if only in ideas and QA haha.

Thanks again for being such a swell dude!

[mostafaznv]

You’re welcome, @matbind
It’s kind of you, and thank you for your heartwarming words.

I’m glad it helped you, and I appreciate your contribution 🤘