XML Server Getting Started    

Programming Windows and Dialog Boxes 

A dialog box is a special window that you create using the 

showModalDialog

 and showModelessDialog methods on the 

window

 object. Dialog boxes are useful for obtaining input from the user in a way that does not obscure the information in 

the current window. They are also useful for displaying important information that the user should act upon or acknowledge 

before proceeding. 

The 

showModalDialog

 method is similar to the 

open

 method in that it takes the URL of an HTML document and displays the 

document in a new window. One of the main differences, however, is that the dialog box is modal, meaning it does not 

release the input focus until it is closed. This means the user cannot switch back to the window that created the dialog box 

until the dialog box is closed. However, this does not prevent the user from switching to other windows or applications.  

Dialog boxes accept arguments via 

dialogArguments property

 .  They can return value to the calling script by assigning it to 

the 

returnValue property

.  

To illustrate the use of dialog boxes we modify the script section contained in /Examples/Tutorial/step5.jsp. 

Precisely, we make both buttons    bnt_ok  and  bnt_cancel    close the (dialog box) window and we assign boolean value 

to 

returnValue 

property of our dialog box.  The resulting XMLSPage is located in /Examples/Tutorial/step6.jsp: 

Now, to invoke this dialog box we provide  HTML page located in 

/Examples/Tutorial/step6.html

:  

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