Override window.alert

By  on  

For years the only bit of feedback web developers could get was via alert("{str}") calls. These days we have the web console but, in rare cases, we don't have a console and alert calls are our only window into a value at a given time.

One problem: if an alert sneaks into production code, your site looks like it's been hacked. Your site looks like it's malware! To prevent any of those issues, you can add this snippet to your production build:

window.alert = console.log

This tiny line of JavaScript could save your site from catastrophe. There are many cases for overriding native functionality and this is a great example!

Recent Features

  • By
    7 Essential JavaScript Functions

    I remember the early days of JavaScript where you needed a simple function for just about everything because the browser vendors implemented features differently, and not just edge features, basic features, like addEventListener and attachEvent.  Times have changed but there are still a few functions each developer should...

  • By
    CSS 3D Folding Animation

    Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Implement jQuery’s hover() Method in MooTools

    jQuery offers a quick event shortcut method called hover that accepts two functions that represent mouseover and mouseout actions. Here's how to implement that for MooTools Elements. The MooTools JavaScript We implement hover() which accepts to functions; one will be called on mouseenter and the other...

  • By
    HTML5’s placeholder Attribute

    HTML5 has introduced many features to the browser;  some HTML-based, some in the form of JavaScript APIs, but all of them useful.  One of my favorites if the introduction of the placeholder attribute to INPUT elements.  The placeholder attribute shows text in a field until the...

Discussion

  1. jonathan santos

    it’s an interesting idea, and I’m not saying the world is perfect, but if instead of using this to avoid pushing debug code onto production, how would I go about testing for stuff like alerts and other weird edge cases

  2. Mr P

    In older IE browsers the browser will crash if console.log is called when the debug window is closed. Will this work then?

  3. dev

    override window.alert in IE for logggint using $.ajax to call WebService or REST API ?

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!