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

[Chris George]

Good morning Jeff,

Thank you for the explanation on how ShowModalDialog works.
Unfortunately, it is being used incorrectly, I think. Or rather, the
needs of the client have changed in that ShowModalDialog isn't going to
do what they need. Basically, web page A runs full screen in IE (it's IE
only, as it's an internal training app) and within this page there are
other modules, namely a "details" screen and a "glossary" screen - both
of which use the ShowModalDialogue. 

The client now wants to link glossary and details items to their
respective pages, behind the modal window.

The problem I *thought* I was contending with is that I need to actually
call a JS function in the background window to change a bunch of
navigation elements. Which would, I guess, be one of 2 problems now. :-)

Thanks for any more insight you might be able to pass along.

Chris. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Howden [mailto:jeff at jeffhowden.com]

chris,

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