How can I accomplish the following using jQuery: Open a popup window that returns a value to the parent window when a link in the child window is clicked, close the child window, and then have the parent automatically submit a form based on the value returned?

I realize that the jQuery Dialog is a popular solution, but I require a popup window because the window's contents need to be navigable, and I want to avoid using an iframe in the jQuery Dialog.

The popup window is going to be used to collect more than one value, ultimately to be returned as a delimited string to the parent, but this data collection needs to occur prior to the submission of the parent window's form. If there were a standard design pattern for an "Entity Picker", this would be it.

This needs to work in IE8, FF3.6, Safari 4, and Chrome 5.

Thanks, Mark

How can I accomplish the following using jQuery: Open a popup window that returns a value to the parent window when a link in the child window is clicked, close the child window, and then have the parent automatically submit a form based on the value returned?

I realize that the jQuery Dialog is a popular solution, but I require a popup window because the window's contents need to be navigable, and I want to avoid using an iframe in the jQuery Dialog.

The popup window is going to be used to collect more than one value, ultimately to be returned as a delimited string to the parent, but this data collection needs to occur prior to the submission of the parent window's form. If there were a standard design pattern for an "Entity Picker", this would be it.

This needs to work in IE8, FF3.6, Safari 4, and Chrome 5.

Thanks, Mark

• asp.net
• javascript
• jquery
• ajax
• popup

• Why would you need window's contents navigable? That does not make sense-if you want to have popup for one page's form, why let user navigate somewhere else? – Adam Kiss Commented Feb 28, 2010 at 22:52
• Because the popup window is going to be used to collect more than one value, ultimately to be returned as a delimited string to the parent, but this data collection needs to occur prior to the submission of the parent window's form. If there were a standard design pattern for an "Entity Picker", this would be it. – Mark Richman Commented Feb 28, 2010 at 23:18

2 Answers 2

Here is my solution:

var parent = $(parent.document.body);
$(parent).find('input#valStore').val(theVal);
$(parent).find('form#myForm').submit();
window.close();

In your newly opened browser window you could try something like

$("#mylink").click(function(){ 
        value = /* get some value */
        window.opener.$("#myform .somehiddenfield").val(value); 
        window.opener.$("#myform").submit();
        window.close(); 
}); 

DISCLAIMER: I haven't tested this in any browser.