Help with modal dialog returning a value to the calling page

Question

Greetings,
Apex Version: 4.1.0.0.32
What I am trying to do is to create a modal dialog that is called from a form page. The dialog will present the user with an IR report that will allow the him to select a row and return a value from that row to a field on the calling page. I have it working in Firefox, but I get an error using IE 8. I hope someone can show me why it is not working in IE.
Here is how I am doing it:
From the calling page:
Created a button
     Action: Redirect to URL
     URL Target: javascript:var rc = window.showModalDialog('f?p=&APP_ID.:70:&SESSION.::&DEBUG.:::','','resizable:yes;center:yes;dialogWidth:1000px;dialogHeight:500px;');
On the called page:
The called page is an IR report where the query returns this as one of the columns:
*(Note: I had to put a dot '.' in front of the onclick to get it to show in this thread. It is not there in my real code.)*
select
<a href="#" name="z" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline;" .onclick="javascript:passBack(''' || LOT_NO ||''');">Select</a>' SelectThis
, column1
, column2
from sometablename;This resolves the anchor to:
<a .onclick="javascript:passBack('232158');"  href="#">Select</a>Here is the Javascript function that is called from the anchor onclick:
function passBack(passVal1)
  opener.document.getElementById("P75_ITEM1").value = passVal1;
  close();
}When I run this in Firefox, it works as expected. I click on the button on the parent page. The modal dialog is opened and the IR report is displayed. I click on one of the links in the report and it returns the correct value back to the calling page and closes the modal dialog.
When I run it in IE8, it fails. I click on the button on the parent page. The modal dialog is opened and the IR report is displayed. I click on one of the links in the report and I get this error: “opener.document is null or not an object”.
I hope that is clear and that someone can help.
Thanks
Larry

Answer 1

A quick google search determines that window.opener doesn't exists when using window.showModalDialog
Suggestions range from using window.open instead of window.showModalDialog to using dialogArguments instead of window.opener
Try the following:
In the parent page define a getPopupValue() function:
function getPopupValue(){
   var dr =  window.showModalDialog('f?p=&APP_ID.:70:&SESSION.::&DEBUG.:::','','resizable:yes;center:yes;dialogWidth:1000px;dialogHeight:500px;');
    if ( (dr != undefined) && (dr != '') && (dr != false) ){
     $x("P75_ITEM1").value = dr;
}Change the button url to call the function:
javascript:getPopupValue(); On the popup page change the passback function to:
function passBack(passVal1)
  returnValue = passVal1;
  close();
}