Launching external web page as a pop-up from FIM Portal Navigation Bar and Home Page

I would like to be able to access a web page that is external to FIM (e.g., www.microsoft.com vs. the “My Profile” page) from the Navigation Bar and the Home Page…as a pop-up window. I can currently navigate to an external page via both the Navigation Bar and the Home Page by specifying the Navigation URL in either location, but I’ve not been able to accomplish this as a pop-up.

I have been able to successfully pop-up a custom resource form from the Navigation Bar. For example, I created a new resource called “Position”.  I can pop-up the CREATE form from the Navigation Bar for this new resource by specifying the Display Name in the Navigation Bar configuration as follows (see picture below):

<a href=# onclick=javascript:PopupPage('/identitymanagement/aspx/customized/CreateCustomizedObject.aspx?type=PositionDefinition');>Create a new Position</a>

I can also successfully pop-up the same custom form from the Home Page by specifying the following as the Navigation URL:

javascript:PopupPage("/identitymanagement/aspx/customized/CreateCustomizedObject.aspx?type=PositionDefinition");

I tried to pop-up an external page (e.g., www.microsoft.com) on the Navigation Bar and the Home Page using these same approaches, but it doesn’t work. I can pop-up an external page from the “User” create/edit/view forms using the following XML:

      <my:Control my:Name="ApplicationCredentialPage" my:TypeName="UocHyperLink" my:Caption="Application Credential Store Manager" my:Description="">

        <my:Properties>

          <my:Property my:Name="NavigateUrl" my:Value="https://sts.ngdev.net/csm/OtherDomains.aspx"/>

          <my:Property my:Name="Text" my:Value="https://sts.ngdev.net/csm/OtherDomains.aspx"/>

        </my:Properties>

      </my:Control>

Ultimately, however, I would like to be able to pop-up an external page from the Navigation Bar and Home Page. Is there a way to do this?

Note that the pop-ups occur in two ways:

1. With the XML approach on the “User” form, the pop-up window opens as a new window that I can then iconify without losing access to my FIM Portal window.
2. The pop-ups that I did from the Navigation Bar and Home Page for the “Create a new Position” customized resource page cannot be iconified; the underlying access to FIM Portal is locked until the user submits or cancels from the pop-up window.

I would be interested in being able to pop-up an external page from the Navigation Bar and Home Page in either of these 2 ways. Thanks so much for your help!

Ramona Balke