jQuery UI Dialog with ASP.NET button postback

Question

I have a jQuery UI Dialog working great on my ASP.NET page:

jQuery(function() {
    jQuery(\"#dialog\").dialog({
        draggable: true,
        resizable:          


        

Answer 1

I didn't want to have to work around this problem for every dialog in my project, so I created a simple jQuery plugin. This plugin is merely for opening new dialogs and placing them within the ASP.NET form:

(function($) {
    /**
     * This is a simple jQuery plugin that works with the jQuery UI
     * dialog. This plugin makes the jQuery UI dialog append to the
     * first form on the page (i.e. the asp.net form) so that
     * forms in the dialog will post back to the server.
     *
     * This plugin is merely used to open dialogs. Use the normal
     * $.fn.dialog() function to close dialogs programatically.
     */
    $.fn.aspdialog = function() {
        if (typeof $.fn.dialog !== "function")
            return;

        var dlg = {};

        if ( (arguments.length == 0)
                || (arguments[0] instanceof String) ) {
            // If we just want to open it without any options
            // we do it this way.
            dlg = this.dialog({ "autoOpen": false });
            dlg.parent().appendTo('form:first');
            dlg.dialog('open');
        }
        else {
            var options = arguments[0];
            options.autoOpen = false;
            options.bgiframe = true;

            dlg = this.dialog(options);
            dlg.parent().appendTo('form:first');
            dlg.dialog('open');
        }
    };
})(jQuery);

So to use the plugin, you first load jQuery UI and then the plugin. Then you can do something like the following:

$('#myDialog1').aspdialog(); // Simple
$('#myDialog2').aspdialog('open'); // The same thing
$('#myDialog3').aspdialog({title: "My Dialog", width: 320, height: 240}); // With options!

To be clear, this plugin assumes you are ready to show the dialog when you call it.