The dialog widget gives UI developers a tool with which they can present the user with forms or other pieces of information without disrupting what is currently on the page; dialogs create a new context. Out-of-the-box, developers can do a lot with dialog options, and many of these capabilities are turned on by default. This includes the ability to resize the dialog, and move it around on the page.

In this chapter, we'll address some common pitfalls of dialog usage typical in any web application. There is often a need to adjust the controls of the dialog and its overall appearance; we'll touch on a few of those. We'll also look at how interacting with API data complicates dialog usage and the ways to deal with that. Finally, we can add some polish to dialog widgets by looking at the various ways in which we can apply effects to them.