How do I detect a page refresh using jquery?

Question

How might I capture the page reload event?

I have a messaging system which loses all its input when the user refreshes the page. I want to use ajax to re-populate, hence my need to detect when the page has been refreshed/reloaded.

Answer 1

$('body').bind('beforeunload',function(){    //do something }); 

But this wont save any info for later, unless you were planning on saving that in a cookie somewhere (or local storage) and the unload event does not always fire in all browsers.

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Example: http://jsfiddle.net/maniator/qpK7Y/

Code:

$(window).bind('beforeunload',function(){       //save info somewhere      return 'are you sure you want to leave?';  });