HTMLDialogElement: show() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2022.

The show() method of the HTMLDialogElement interface displays the dialog as a non-modal dialog.

A non-modal dialog is one where users can interact with content outside/behind the open dialog.

Syntax

show()

Parameters

None.

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

InvalidStateError DOMException

Thrown if the dialog is already open and modal (i.e., if the dialog has already been opened with HTMLDialogElement.showModal()).

Examples

Basic usage

The following example shows a simple button that, when clicked, opens a <dialog> using the show() method.

When the dialog is open, you can still interact with the rest of the page, including clicking the Click me button that triggers an alert.

You can click the Close dialog button to close the dialog (via the close() method).

HTML

html
<dialog id="dialog">
  <button type="button" id="close">Close dialog</button>
</dialog>

<p><button id="open">Open dialog</button></p>
<p><button id="alert">Trigger alert</button></p>

JavaScript

js
const dialog = document.getElementById("dialog");
const openButton = document.getElementById("open");
const closeButton = document.getElementById("close");
const alertButton = document.getElementById("alert");

// Open button opens a modeless dialog
openButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  dialog.show();
});

// Alert button triggers an alert
alertButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  alert("you clicked me!");
});

// Close button closes the dialog box
closeButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  dialog.close();
});