jQuery Mobile Displaying A Dialog

While working on a mobile web app that is using jQuery Mobile I wanted to display a dialog without making an Ajax call to the server to load it which is the "out of the box" way to do it.

Initially I couldn't figure out how to do this but after some reading and thinking it's ridiculously easy.

You have to use a multi-page template which means you have more then one jQuery Mobile "page" container. Example:

<div data-role="page" data-theme="a">
    <div data-role="header" class="header">
        <a href="#menu" data-icon="grid" data-theme="b" data-iconpos="notext" data-transition="pop">&nbsp;</a>
        <h1>My Web App</h1>
        
    </div>

    <div id="map" data-role="content" data-theme="d">
        <p>This is my main content</p>
    </div>
    
    <div data-role="footer">
        <div>
        by <a href="http://cdeutsch.com" rel="external">CDeutsch</a>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

<!--start menu-->
<div id="menu" data-role="dialog" data-theme="a" data-url="menu">
    <div data-role="header" class="header">
        <h1>Main Menu</h1>
    </div>
    <div data-role="content" data-theme="d">
        <ul data-role="listview" data-theme="c">
            <li><a href="http://blog.cdeutsch.com" rel="external">My Blog</a></li>
            <li><a href="http://twitter.com/cdeutsch" rel="external">Twitter</a></li>
        </ul>
    </div>
</div>

I'm using a button on the left side of the header to trigger showing the dialog. Just set the href to the id of the dialog (in this case menu) and you're all set. No more repeatedly hitting the server for a frequently used resource.

See this jsfiddle for a working example.