WatiN driving the IE "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" popup

Question

I'd like to extend my WatiN automated tests to drive a page that guards against the user accidentally leaving the page without saving changes.

The page uses the "beforeunload" technique to seek confirmation from the user:

$(window).bind('beforeunload', function (event) {
    if (confirmationRequired) {
        return "Sure??";
    }
});

My WatIn test is driving the page using IE. I cannot find a way to get WatIn to attach to the popup dialog so I can control it from my test.

All the following have failed (where the hard-coded strings refer to strings that I can see on the popup):

Browser.AttachTo<IE>(Find.ByTitle("Windows Internet Explorer");
browser.HtmlDialog(Find.FindByTitle("Windows Internet Explorer));
browser.HtmlDialog(Find.FindByTitle("Are you sure you want to leave this page?));
browser.HtmlDialog(Find.FindFirst());

Thanks!

Answer 1

You'll need to create and add the dialog handler.

Example Go to example site, click link, click leave page on confirmation dialog:

IE browser = new IE();
browser.GoTo("http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/dhtml/refs/onbeforeunload.htm");

WatiN.Core.DialogHandlers.ReturnDialogHandlerIe9 myHandler = new WatiN.Core.DialogHandlers.ReturnDialogHandlerIe9();

browser.AddDialogHandler(myHandler);
browser.Link(Find.ByUrl("http://www.microsoft.com")).ClickNoWait();
myHandler.WaitUntilExists();

myHandler.OKButton.Click();
browser.RemoveDialogHandler(myHandler);

The above is working on WatiN2.1, IE9, Win7. If using IE8 or before, you will likely need to use the ReturnDialogHandler object instead of the Ie9 specific handler