[whatwg] showModalDialog

[Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen]

On 1 Jul 2005 at 11:44, Sanghyeon Seo wrote:

> Concerning recent thread about modal and modeless windows, did anyone
> mention showModalDialog already?
> 
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/methods/showmodaldialog.asp
> 
> I believe this functionality does come in handy in some cases.
> Microsoft wouldn't have implemented it if there wasn't any demand?

One of the reasons why modal popup-windows are a very bad feature in 
a browser is that, unlike a desktop application, you don't really 
know what other pages you prevent the user from accessing by throwing 
up a modal dialog. To go with the address book example from the 
previous thread: I click "edit" in my fancy address book application, 
a modal window pops up, I want to go to the tab where my E-mail lives 
to copy the address I wanted to put in my address book and ... ouch, 
can't get to the E-mail because I use an integrated browser/mail 
client application and the modal dialog blocks access to all the 
tabs.

I don't think showModalDialog should be in WHAT's spec. I think 
current DHTML/AJAX tricks offer adequate solutions for modal dialogs.
-- 
Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen
http://www.hallvord.com/