I'm using Ruby 1.8.6 and Watir 1.6.2, BTW.
Then I came across a blog post that proposes to override the javascript alert and confirm functions. Read the whole thread from google groups here.
I was stoked !!! Even more so that it worked beautifully.
What I did was to encapsulate it into a def which accepts the IE instance created by watir.
def replace_js_popups(ie)
ie.document.parentWindow.execScript("window.confirm=function(){return true}");
ie.document.parentWindow.execScript("window.alert=function(){return true}");
end
Now, right after going to a page, I would call on "replace_js_popups" to override both confirm and alert, like so.
ie = Watir::IE.new
ie.goto(url_with_popup_here)
replace_js_popup
Of course, this is not a fool proof solution. By replacing the alert and confirm functions with a function that always returns true, you will need to always expect the popups to return a value of true in your automated tests.
