[Javascript] Challenge - Passing Object Refs to Other Windows

[Peter Thompson]

I have a problem that I've been struggling to 
figure out.

I'm developing a web-based document control 
system.  When the user clicks the Submit button, 
my boss wants me to then prompt for all the 
approval information.  I created a flowchart in 
Visio and this process turns out to be quite 
complicated.  It means opening a series of 
windows to walk the user through forms which 
prompt them for info - approval names, approval 
type (Parallel vs. Serial), etc.  There are about 
6 windows that need to be opened in this sequence.

As I open the next window, I want to close the 
previous.  My challenge is: how to maintain a 
handle to the original document?  I need to pass 
a reference to this window from window to 
window.  That way, I can write data back to the 
original document during this process.

I just can't figure out how to do it.  If I 
create a method in window A that I call from 
window B and pass it the original window object, 
that would work - but how do I reference that 
method in window A?  

Obviously, I have the window.opener property to 
get the previous window reference but once I 
close the first "dialog" box, 
window.opener.window.opener.... won't work 
because I've broken that chain back to the 
original document by closing one of the windows.

It would look horrible to have to open all these 
windows and leave them open until the last step.  
If I can't pass a window reference, then is there 
some way to hide an open window?  I think I can 
use DHTML to change it's z-order and put it 
behind the top window, is that correct?

Thanks for any help!

-Peter