Question

I am able to center the dialog with a default position that is the exact center of the page. However when the page height is longer that the browser window, when the dialog first opens, it scrolls the entire page back to its center.

I would like to preset the dialog to be at the center relative to the screen not the page.

I believe this is what I use to initialize it:

dialogDiv.dialog(
{
    title: "Edit Rating",
    width: 'auto',
    height: 'auto',
    modal: true,
    resizable: false
}); 

Answer 1

I think it may not need much effort.

$("#dialog").dialog();

As per this article, it defaults to the center :

http://jqueryui.com/dialog/#default

I too tried this and worked

This is even better:

$("#myDialog").position({
my: "center",
at: "center",
of: window
});

Sample code: http://jqueryui.com/demos/position/