84833 - calling self.close() right after calling submit() cancels submission

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Forms, defect, P3)

Description

[hstory]

We have a popup window that has a submit element and a button. On clicking
either button we would like the window to close. There does not seem to be a way
to do this. 
Our html engineers have tried:
1. placing a <a href=".." onlclick=this.close()><input...></a>
2. using the onclick in <input ... onlick=this.close()>
3. using the onsubmit in the form element <form ... onsubmit=...>

All of these work with Internet Explorer. and are part of the standard spec.

 I can conceive that there may be a problem with 1: which should be called first
the "<a href" action or the input submission action. But the other two options
are not problematic.

This may be a duplicate of 67875. But I was not quite sure, as the xhtml
references are missing. I will attach the two problem files.

Henry

Comment 1

[hstory]

Attachment: the first attempt at closing the window

Comment 2

[hstory]

Attachment: solution number three to closing the window

Comment 3

[hstory]

Attachment: the javascript file that is used by the two previous examples

Comment 4

[Madhur Bhatia]

QA contact updated

Comment 5

[Keyser Sose]

I am not sure really what to do with this bug. Still a problem in the latest
nightlies?

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

alright....  Here's the problem as I see it.

When a button is clicked (a submit button for a form), I would expect any
onclick event for the button to be processed first.

Once the onclick event is processed, the window is gone, and what is there to
submit?

To get this to work in all browsers, I would suggest having an onclick event
handler that first calls the form's submit() method and only after that calls
window.close()...  All that said, over to DOM events for investigation.  Should
we be processing the submit() at all here?  If the window.close() returns success?

Comment 7

[saari (gone)]

-> moz 1.1, 4.x and IE compatibility issue

Comment 8

[jsnod]

this problem is deeper than simply closing windows: onsubmit and/or onclick
allows one to verify form inputs before the form is actually submitted.  this
seriously breaks forms with required fields - mozilla submits the form with
blank entires, while IE/others present the user with a warning.  Example code below:

function validate() {
  if (formthing.elementname.value == "") {
    alert("You must enter somthing.");
    event.returnValue=false;
    formthing.elementname.focus();
  }
}

<FORM ACTION="file.php" NAME="formthing" METHOD="post" onsubmit="validate();">
  <INPUT TYPE="Text" name="elementname">
  <INPUT TYPE="Submit" value="Submit">
</FORM>

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Comment 8 has buggy code... "event.returnValue=false;" is an IE-ism.  The global
event object is something IE sort of made up.

If your "validate" function took an argument and your handler definition passed
it an event like so:

onsubmit="validate(event);"

then you could call event.preventDefault() in the handler to prevent the efault
action (this is the correct way per the DOM Events module).

Or your handler should return "false" for cases when you want to prevent the
action.

Comment 10

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Attachment: test - onsubmit="return false;"

Comment 11

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Attachment: onsubmit="return true;"

Comment 12

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Attachment: onsubmit="return true;" onclick="return true;

Comment 13

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Attachment: onsubmit="return true;" onclick="return false;"

Comment 14

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Attachment: onsubmit="self.close();return true;" onclick="self.close();return true;" (Warning: open in new window)

Comment 15

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Attachment: onsubmit="self.close();return true;" onclick="self.close();return true;" with button (Warning: open in new window)

Comment 16

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

These test cases work with a 2002-02-06-03/win2k build and a very old
2001-11-10-06/Linux build. I am getting a newer Linux build, but this looks like
a works for me. Anyone disagree?

Comment 17

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

looks like this works in Linux 2002 02 08 07 trunk build as well. Can we mark
this  wfm and get it off the radar?

Comment 18

[Roger C. Soares]

Attachment: testing submit and window close. (Warning: open in new window)

This attachment opens a new window, submits the form with the target set to the
new window and closes the opener window.
On netscape 6.2 and mozilla 0.9.7 (win95/98/linux) the new window is opened but
the submit action doesn't take place. On IE it works.

Comment 19

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

jkeiser, could you test that last testcase with the new form submission code?

I can reproduce the problem in Roger's testcase.  I get the alert asking me
whether I'm sure I want to submit insecurely and then the window closes and no
submission happens.

Note that putting the close() call on a timeout ("setTimeout(self.close, 0)")
will make the form submit....

Comment 20

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

bz, i see what you mean, but can we clean this bug up so the summary means
something?

Change "onsubmit in form element does not work, neither does onclick help" to
"race between form submit and window.close" perhaps? 

Also, the last test case is reproducible in Win2k with or without using a
password field, so I recommend OS -> ALL.

Comment 21

[Vladimir Ermakov]

Attachment: testcase

Comment 22

[Vladimir Ermakov]

-> form submission

Comment 23

[Jesse Ruderman]

Dup of bug 93694?

Comment 24

[Vladimir Ermakov]

*** Bug 93694 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 25

[Vladimir Ermakov]

*** Bug 187554 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 26

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 356553 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 27

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Moving to p3 because no activity for at least 1 year(s).
See https://github.com/mozilla/bug-handling/blob/master/policy/triage-bugzilla.md#how-do-you-triage for more information