Traditionally, the way to display a brief message or ask a visitor a question would've been to use one of JavaScript's native dialog boxes (such as alert or confirm), or to open a new web page with a predefined size, styled to look like a dialog box.
Unfortunately, as I'm sure you're aware, neither of these methods is particularly flexible to us as developers or particularly engaging for our visitors. For every problem they solve, several new problems are usually introduced.
The dialog widget lets us display a message, supplemental content (such as images or text) or even interactive content (such as forms). It's also easy to add buttons, such as a simple Ok and Cancel to the dialog, and define the callback functions for them in order to react to their being clicked; the dialog can also be modal or nonmodal.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
Creating a basic dialog
Working with the dialog options
Modality
Enabling the built-in animations
Adding buttons to...