Pass Ajax POST variable to JQuery UI dialog - ajax

Question

Below is an Ajax POST variable I use to return some information to an ASP MVC3 View. However, I cannot get the .dialg() pop-up function to work. Right now you click on the icon that calls GetProgramDetails(pgmname), and nothing happens. First time using Ajax, so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thx!
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.8.3.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.2/jquery-ui.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function GetProgramDetails(pgmname) {
var request = $.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: '/BatchPrograms/PopDetails',
data: { programName: pgmname },
dataType: 'html'
});
request.done(function (data) {
$('#data').dialog();
});
</script>
EDIT
I've updated the request.done function to include a simple alert to see if the code was being called. After stepping through with Chrome's debugger, I saw that the code inside was completely skipped over.
request.done(function (data) {
alert("HERE!");
$('#programExplanation').html(data);
});
SECOND EDIT
Here is the controller code the ajax is returning a value from:
[HttpPost]
public string PopDetails(string programName)
{
BatchPrograms batchprograms = db.BatchPrograms.Find(programName);
if (batchprograms == null) return string.Empty;
StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();
s.Append(batchprograms.ProgramName + " - " + batchprograms.ShortDescription);
s.Append("<br />Job Names: " + batchprograms.PrdJobName + ", " + batchprograms.QuaJobName );
s.Append("<br /> " + batchprograms.Description);
return s.ToString();
}

Answer 1

You need to use the success method to handle the callback, like so:
var request = $.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: '/BatchPrograms/PopDetails',
data: { programName: pgmname },
dataType: 'html'
}).success(function(data){ $('#data').dialog()} );
This will launch the dialog for you, but if you want to get the response data to work with it, you can have GetProgramDetails take a second parameter which is a callback for after the data is loaded like so:
function GetProgramDetails(pgmname, callback) {
var request = $.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: '/BatchPrograms/PopDetails',
data: { programName: pgmname },
dataType: 'html'
}).success(callback);
}
This way after the response is received you can handle what to do with the data in your implementation of the callback, in this case it seems like you will be setting data in the dialog and launching the dialog.