jQuery UI dialog with boolean return - true or false

Question

I´m trying to do an replacement for the javascript confirm(). I have found the jquery dialog() function that can be fully customized. The problem is that i cant make it return true or false.

Here is my code:

$('#delBox').dialog(
        { autoOpen: false, resizable: false, modal: true, closeOnEscape: true, width: 300, height: 'auto', title: 'Deletar registro',
            buttons: {
                "Ok": function () {
                    return true;
                }, "Cancelar": function () {
                    $(this).dialog("close");
                    return false;
                }
            },
            open: function () {
                var buttonsSet = $('.ui-dialog-buttonset').find("button:contains('Ok')");
                buttonsSet.attr("class", "ui-button ui-state-default");
                $('.ui-dialog-titlebar-close span').empty();
                $('.ui-dialog-buttonset').find("button:contains('Ok')").button({
                    text: false,
                    icons: {
                        primary: 'ui-icon-ok'
                    }
                });

                $('.ui-dialog-buttonset').find("button:contains('Cancelar')").button({
                    text: false, 
                    icons: {
                        primary: 'ui-icon-cancel'
                    }
                });
            }
        });

This only return an object before any option selected:

function deletar() {
     alert($('#delBox').dialog('open'));
}

Answer 1

jQueryUI dialog boxes can't return a true or false as they're shown on top of other content but without blocking execution.

The best you can do is:

1. make the box modal so that it hides the other content

2. supply callbacks to be used depending on which option is chosen.

For extra bonus points, you could create a $.Deferred() promise object and return that when you show the dialog. You can then resolve or reject that promise in the button event handlers.

This would give you clean separation between showing the dialog box, and performing the actions subsequently triggered by it:

function showDialog() {
   var def = $.Deferred();

   // create and/or show the dialog box here
   // but in "OK" do 'def.resolve()'
   // and in "cancel" do 'def.reject()'

   return def.promise();
}

showDialog().done(function() {
    // they pressed OK
}).fail(function() {
    // the pressed Cancel
});

// NB: execution will continue here immediately - you shouldn't do
//     anything else now - any subsequent operations need to be
//     started in the above callbacks.