title: passing variables on jQuery UI AJAX-loaded Tabs
body: <p>I've got a unique UI issue on an online application built with PHP and jQuery.  The page is made of jQuery UI tabs which load data via the ajax method.  Starting on the index.php where the tabs are rendered, the user is allowed to open a jQuery UI dialog modal window to select a user.  Upon choosing a user (via a link next to their name) a function should close the dialog window, select tab index #1, and make a variable available to the page that's loaded to allow me to run a query that will populate the user data in that page.</p>
  
  <p>All is working well but the last part....I can't get a variable to the page to save my life.</p>
  
  <p>First, the setup:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;ul&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="dashboard.php"&gt;Dashboard&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="currentcall.php"&gt;Current Call&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="managequeue.php"&gt;Manage Queue&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="admin.php"&gt;Admin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;
  
  &lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
      var curtab = $('#tabs').tabs();
  
      function chooseSearchProspect(prospect_id, allow_open) { 
         $('#prospect_search_modal').dialog('close');
         $("#tabs").tabs({
        disabled: [],
        selected: 1,
         });
      }
  &lt;/script&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've tried several different methods including passing ajax parameters via the "Ajax Options" field <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1538189/jquery-ui-tabs-passing-a-querystring">as described here</a> which seems like the ideal solution, but no matter what I do it seems I can't get a $_REQUEST parameter through to currentcall.php.  I can't just set a hidden variable in the currentcall.php via  <code>$('#id').val()</code> in the function, because the page that will be opened by tabs hasn't been loaded into the DOM yet.  I'm at a loss where to go from here!</p>