Declined
Last Updated: 25 Mar 2024 13:31 by ADMIN
Chris
Created on: 19 Jan 2023 05:00
Category: UI for ASP.NET MVC
Type: Bug Report
0
ASP.NET MVC Grid Export to Excel in Edge causes tab to close

I have a cshtml page that uses Kendo UI ASP.NET MVC that does the following:

  • sends an ajax request to a controller action method,
  • opens a new tab using window.open(),
  • displays a temporary message to let the user know that something is happening,
  • then overwrite the new tab content using the view that is contained in the ajax response.

The view contains one or more grid widgets (the number depends on how many result types were requested) and each grid is set up to export Excel.

The problem is that when window.open() is used to open a new tab, the browser history state is null and the window.location.href is empty with the browser location showing "about:blank". For Chrome and Firefox, this does not cause any issues when exporting excel for the grid.  However, when using Edge with this situation, when the Export to Excel grid toolbar button is clicked and the onExportExcel event is fired,  the browser Open or Save dialog prompt is displayed but the active tab (the one that contained the grid) closes. This behaviour is very undesireable. The ProxyUrl grid excel option does not fire since Edge supports javascript file saving.

A workaround for this situation is to forcibly set the new tab window object location href by using the window.history.pushUpdate function. A code snippet is included below.


let dataModel = {Id = 123571113, Name="jason bourne"};
let jsonModel = JSON.stringify(dataModel);
let curDate = new Date();
let targetUrl = '@Url.Action("Reports", "Report", new { @area = "Reports" })';
let targetWindowName = "something meaningful" + " " + curDate.toISOString();//add datetime stamp to avoid issue where you cannot open a window with the same name as the current window.
let html = "some html content to provide a temporary message to your audience";
let targetWindow = window.open(targetUrl, targetWindowName);
if (targetWindow !== null && targetWindow !== undefined)
{
   targetWindow.document.write(html);
   targetWindow.document.close(); // to finish loading the page
   targetWindow.document.title = targetWindowName;

   //attempt to forcibly update the URL in the history and target window location to fix problem with grid export to excel on Edge browser
   let targetWindowHistoryHref = window.location.href;
   if (oModel.BuildingDesigns !== null && oModel.BuildingDesigns !== undefined && oModel.BuildingDesigns.length > 0) {
       targetWindowHistoryHref += "?oBuildingDesignId=" + oModel.BuildingDesigns[0].ObfuscatedBuildingDesignId + "&BuildingDesignName=" + oModel.BuildingDesigns[0].BuildingDesignName;
   } else {
       targetWindowHistoryHref += "?" + oModel.Target;
   }
   targetWindow.history.pushState(null, null, targetWindowHistoryHref);
}
$.when(
	$.ajax({
		type: "POST",
		dataType: "html", // this is the data type expected to be returned from the controller method
		contentType: "application/json", // this is the content type expected by the controller method
		url: targetUrl,
		data: jsonModel,
		beforeSend: function() {
			console.log(".... submitting report request");
			athena.loader.loading("submitting report request");
		},
		success: function(response) {
			athena.loader.stopLoading();
			if (debugLevel > 2) {
				console.log(".... response = " + response + " : ", response);
			}

			//attempt to populate the target browser tab with the response
			try {
				console.log(".... attempting to open a browser tab and populate it with the HTML response object");
				console.log(".... targetWindow = " + targetWindow);
				//will trigger popup blockers :: targetWindow = window.open("", oModel.Target);
				if (targetWindow !== null) {
					if (response === null || response === undefined) {
						targetWindow.document.body.innerHTML = '';
					} else {
						//completely replace the existing document (not just the innerhtml)
						targetWindow.document.open();
						targetWindow.document.write(response);
						targetWindow.document.close();
						targetWindow.document.title = targetWindowName;
					}
				}
			} catch (ex) {
				// do nothing, just catch when the open fails.
				console.log("error: " + ex.message);
			}
		},
		error: function(jqXhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {
			console.log('.... error :: ajax status = ' + textStatus + ' :: errorThrown = ' + errorThrown);
			console.log('....-- jqXhr.responseText :: \n' + jqXhr.responseText);
		}
	})
).done(
	function() {
		console.log(".... report request has completed");
		targetWindow.focus();
	}
);

1 comment
ADMIN
Ivan Danchev
Posted on: 25 Jan 2023 16:19

Hello Chris,

The UI for ASP.NET MVC Grid is initialized with Razor syntax by using an Html Helper. It is not clear how you initialize it in your scenario, since you are replacing the existing Html in the view by calling document.write:

//completely replace the existing document (not just the innerhtml)
targetWindow.document.open();
targetWindow.document.write(response);
targetWindow.document.close();
targetWindow.document.title = targetWindowName;

So could you please elaborate more on how the Grid is declared in this scenario and post its declaration, so we can check its configuration?

Regards,
Ivan Danchev
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