Question

Normally when a window is opened using window.open I can access the caller window by using window.opener(), is it possible do the similar within modal dialogs(window.showModalDialog)?

Answer 1

As you can read in a comment on the MSDN page about showModalDialog (thanks to Pekka),

[t]he window.opener method returns
null, rather than a reference to the
opening window. So you cannot refresh
the opening window with
window.opener.location.refresh()
(if, for instance, you use
showModalDialog to open an editing
dialog). If all you want to do is
refresh the opening window every time
the ModalDialog closes, that is easy
(include window.location.refresh()
right after the call to
showModalDialog). But if you only
want to refresh the opening window in
certain cases (e.g., the opening
window takes a while to refresh), you
can do that by passing a
dialogArgument.

A more clever (I think) way is to
pass the window reference itself as the dialogArgument. In the
calling window, use
window.showModalDialog('newurl.asp',
window). In the called dialog
retrieve the reference with var
window_opener =
window.dialogArguments. You can use
the window reference stored in
variable window_opener in place of
window.opener, to refresh the
calling window from the called dialog.

Do note that Firefox and Chrome (for
instance) do not appear to have these
limitations, and appear to treat
ModalDialogs more like regular
windows. Keep that in mind if you do
testing using one of these browsers,
but intend your application to work in
all browsers.