JavaScript Bible, Gold Edition part 45. This book will bring programmers and non-technical professionals, including casual programmers and scripters, painlessly up to speed on all aspects of mastering JavaScript. Key topics include programming fundamentals, JavaScript language elements and how to use them effectively, and how to easily and efficiently add powerful new functionality to HTML documents and Java applets. | 288 Part III Document Objects Reference showModalDialog i arguments features showModelessDialog i arguments features Returns returnValue modal or window object modeless . NN2 NN3 NN4 NN6 IE3 J1 IE3 J2 IE4 IE5 Compatibility IE4 provides methods for opening a modal dialog box window which always stays in front of the main browser window while making the main window inaccessible to the user. In IE5 but not IE5 Mac Microsoft added the modeless type of dialog box which also stays in front but allows user access to whatever can be seen in the main window. You can load any HTML page or image that you like into the dialog box window by providing a URL as the first parameter. Optional parameters let you pass data to a dialog box and give you considerable control over the look of the window. Unfortunately these types of dialog box windows are not available in Navigator. At best you can simulate modal and modeless dialog box windows but the job is not for beginners see http viewsource goodman_modal for one example . The windows generated by both methods are almost full-fledged window objects with some extra properties that are useful for what these windows are intended to do. Perhaps the most important property is the property. This property lets a script read the data that is passed to the window via the second parameter of both showModaiDiaiog and showModeiessDiaiog . Passed data can be in any valid JavaScript data type including objects and arrays. Displaying a modal dialog box has some ramifications for scripts. In particular script execution in the main window halts at the statement that invokes the showModaiDiaiog method as long as the modal dialog box remains visible. Scripts are free to run in the dialog box window during this time. The instant the user closes the dialog box execution resumes in the main window. A call to show a modeless dialog box on the other hand does not halt processing because
