this was the big problem that was a huge hiccup.
it is now solved.
The next thing is just getting the buttons to work the way they're expected to
other than that it's all fine.
the correct thing to do at this point is to factor out "show a yes/no popup
window to user"
the complexity in "open a window and then execute some code in the context of
that window" is mind-boggling
nothing works
pharpend