[thelist] window.showModalDialog giving me heartburn...

[Jeff Howden]

chris,

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> From: Chris George
>
> OK, so I'm using this window.showModalDialog - something
> I've never done before. From what I can see, it acts
> *nothing* like window.open.
>
> My dillema is that I need to put a link on the page that
> window.showModalDialog opens, and have the new page load
> in the window behind the modal dialogue.
>
> Can anyone explain it to me like you'd explain it to a
> 3-year-old? I've seen some threads online about it,
> but they talk back and forth at a level that I don't
> understand...
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so, you've used alert() and confirm() before, right?

well, think of the showModalDialog() method as exactly the same thing with
the advantage of being able to control the guts of the dialog yourself.  in
other words, just like alert() and confirm() will affect your program flow,
so too will showModalDialog() (ie, script execution will pause in the opener
until the dialog is closed).

are you using the showModalDialog() method to keep the user from interacting
with the page?  if not, then you're probably using the wrong tool.  give me
some more background on the original problem that the showModalDialog() is
supposed to fix and i'll see what i can offer as a suggestion (or maybe how
to use the showModalDialog() method so that it does what you want).

.jeff

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Jeff Howden - Web Application Specialist
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