SmartNavigation and keeping pages on top

[Peter Stanford]

I have a web application written in VS2003 (VB.NET) and use SmartNavigation to stop long data entry pages from scrolling on postback, i.e. if I refresh the page based on something a user selects, the page position is maintained.

When I pop up a report or help page in a new window, the new page stays in the background and I have to either Alt + TAB to display it or go to the task bar.

Is there a simple way to force the new page to open so it stays on top? Here's my ASP.NET code:

    Private Sub btnHelp_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.ImageClickEventArgs) Handles btnHelp.Click
        Dim popupScript As String = "<script language='javascript'>" & _
            "window.open('Help_New_Product_Form.htm', 'CustomPopUp', " & _
            "'width=800, height=600, left=112, top=84, resizable=yes, scrollbars=yes');CustomPopUp.focus()" & _
            "</script>"

        Page.RegisterStartupScript("PopupScript", popupScript)
    End Sub

 

[Peter Stanford]

One more thing ...

If I remove the SmartNavigation tag from the Page directive, the new window opens on top but I then lose control of the page position on postback. I've been struggling with this forever

 

[Paszt]

Option 1: upgrade to VS2005 and use the MaintainScrollPositionOnPostback directive. It works fine when tested here.
Option 2: if the only thing done in btnHelp's click event handler is to open the window, switch to an html control and use client side script only that requires no postback.

 

[Peter Stanford]

Thanks for the prompt response. Unfortunately the project is already late and over budget (my fault) so upgrading to VS2005 is not an option at this point. There are a number of other things that don't translate easily from VS2003 to VS2005 and I just have to get the project finished.

I'll try option 2 and see whether that works the way I need it to.