Dialog inside dialog not DialogReturn-ing properly

Question

How can I prevent the DialogInput from failing (or returning early) as soon as I close the "Close this" dialog?

DialogInput@Button["Click this", CreateDialog["Close this" ]]

Answer 1

Would that help?

DialogInput@
 Column[{Button["Click this", 
    CreateDialog["Close this",NotebookEventActions -> {}]],
   Button["Done", DialogReturn["done"]]
   }]

I think the outer dialog won't return as long as the inner dialog doesn't call DialogReturn (it could do something else, though). DialogReturn[$Failed] is somehow automatigally inserted for some event actions when calling CreateDialog, although Options[CreateDialog,NotebookEventActions] returns {NotebookEventActions -> None}. The inserted event actions can be seen e.g. with this:

CreateDialog[
 Dynamic@Column@
   CurrentValue[EvaluationNotebook[], NotebookEventActions]]

Answer 2

nestedDialog[] := Module[{tag = True},
   Unprotect[DialogReturn];
   DialogReturn[i_] /; tag := 
    Internal`InheritedBlock[{System`FEDump`$DialogDone},
         Unprotect[DialogReturn];
         DialogReturn[j_] /; tag =.;
         System`FEDump`$DialogDone /: 
      HoldPattern[System`FEDump`$DialogDone = True] = True;
         DialogReturn[i];
         Protect[DialogReturn];
         System`FEDump`$DialogDone /: 
      HoldPattern[System`FEDump`$DialogDone = True] =.;
     ];
   Protect[DialogReturn];
   ];

Use: just call nestedDialog[] before creating new nested dialogs. It makes sense to make the nested dialogs modal because the DialogInput won't return until as many DialogReturnshave been run as nestedDialog[]s have been run (plus one)

DialogInput@{Button["Click this", nestedDialog[]; 
   CreateDialog["Close this", Modal -> True]], 
  DefaultButton[DialogReturn["alskjl"]]}

I tested this in Mathematica 8.0.4, W7x64. Quoted from @AlbertRetey's comment. "I have now tested your code with Mathematica 6.0.2,7.0.1 and 8.0.4 on both Windows 7 and Linux (CentOS) and at least the simple example seems to work alright with any of them"

Answer 3

You could do something like this

DialogInput[Button["Click this",
  CreateDialog["Close this", NotebookEventActions -> {"WindowClose" :> DialogReturn[]}]]]

Answer 4

Try putting a semi-colon after CreateDialog

DialogInput@Button["Click this", CreateDialog["Close this" ];]