Popup questions

I’m OK with the idea of a help button that is a
link_to (… :popup
that produce a modal box.

Q1: Can I make it produce a non-modal box?
So the help text stays up but the user can continue working?

But I’m trying to to deal with modal dialogue boxes.
The most obvious one is a logo box. I’d like to do the login without
actually changing the page behind the dialogue box.

Q2: Can :popup produce dialogue boxes? I presume they would be based
on
partial, but would they need special actions

Its nice to have a ‘login’ pop-up from a link_to button but suppose I
need that same UI popup generated programatically.

def read

 if ! @page.acllist.nil?  # page has restricted access
   if @current_user.nil?
begin
    # trigger login dialogue box if javascript  *****
    # redirect to login page if no javascript *****

end
  # either logged in or not
        if @current_user.nil
raise Application::AccessControlError \
                              "You must be logged in
      return false
        end
        if @page.acllist["read"].include(@current_user.name).nil?
raise Application::AccessControlError \
  "You don't have permission to read that"
return false
  end
  .....  # continue processing page

Q3: Is there a way to determine if javascript is available?
Failing that, how can the “if javascript then …
else redirect and return here”
be handled?

Q4: Will things in the controller actually be updated by a modal
dialogue box? Or would I have to re-scan the database to
update @current_user? How would I cope with non-database
variables? Suppose the modal dialogue box asked for a discount
code?

Q5: Can I link error handling to dialogue boxes?
If so, how can I hand over more parameters (e.g. a redirect to
as opposed to a ‘stay where you are’)?

I know that’s a lot for one post, but as you see the questions are
related and I’m sure this is something a lot of other people would find
useful.


Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
– Terry Pratchett Reaper Man