Can't figure out how to create an update form in a cfwindow tag

Question

I finally was able to figure out how to do an add form inside
of a cfwindow tag yesterday. But I want this form to be
multipurpose, and allow edits as well. But for the life of me, I
can't figure out how to pass a row of data to the form inside a
cfwindow. Normally, I'd pass the primary key via the URL but if I
try to do that here, it basically reloads the page and closes out
the cfwindow since I have the window set to not show by default.
My page has a list of departments. My page is called
departments.cfm. For each row in the department list, there is a
link called edit. When the user clicks this link, I want the
cfwindow to open with the cfform populated with the data from the
department list for the row selected. Sounds simple enough, except
how do I pass the department_id to the form? If my link is <a
href="departments.cfm?id=#department_id#>Edit</a>, the
cfwindow tag displays and I can see the data in it, but then closes
right away. I finally figured out that it was calling the page
again and the cfwindow is closing because I have it set to not
display by default. I'm about ready to drop this cfwindow and just
do real popup windows via javascript. And I'm normally not in favor
of doing popup windows, but the application I'm working on doesn't
have enough real estate on the screen to do a hidden form, so a
separate window containing the form is my best solution.
Anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

Well, this is kind of a tough one for me, but it sounds like
the best way will be to launch a JavaScript function everytime the
user clicks the link, like this:
<cfoutput query="getDepartments">
<a href="javascript:showWin(#yourID#)">show
window</a>
<br>
</cfoutput>
the showWin function will both create the window and launch
it, passing in the user chosen var:
function showWin(id) {
var URL = 'editDeptPage.cfm?dept_id=' + id;
var winName = 'deptWin' + id;
ColdFusion.Window.create(winName, 'Edit the Department',
URL,
{x:100,y:100,height:300,width:400,modal:false,closable:true,
draggable:true,resizable:true,center:true,initshow:true,
minheight:200,minwidth:200 })
The following line of code is supposedly to make sure that
the window refreshes each time it is launched, by naming it
something new each time:
var winName = 'deptWin' + id;
However, if it doesn't work, I think there's a Window refresh
function in the Ext library but I'm not sure.
Also, in the showWin function, after the Window is created,
you might need this but I'm not sure:
ColdFusion.Window.show(winName)
Talk to you later,
Peter