Personally, I would stick with using javascript's alert function since it is dead simple to implement, but it is also a simple display, which it seems you are not really interested in, so you may want to try out some jQuery, I know it seems a little daunting at first but it can easily make some of the most beautiful popups I have ever seen, especially colorbox.
To use javascript, in your code behind page you could do something like this
Dim strScript As String = "<a href='javascript:alert("""Employee ID:" & strEmpID & """);'>" & strEmpName & "</a>"
then write that variable into the grid as a link as text however you can.
Using jQuery you could create an iframe that has some text boxes in it and then create a jQuery function that will call the colorbox to display the iframe, maybe make the link like this....
dim strLinkText as string = "<a href='javascript:ShowEmpInfo(" & Chr(34) & "EmpInfo.aspx?empid=" & strEmpID & Chr(34) & ");'><font color='white' backcolor='#738ca0'>" & strEmpName & "</a>"
and then in jQuery/javascript you have a function called ShowEmpInfo...
function ShowEscore(url) {
// alert(url); //for testing to make sure it is firing
//iframe ID of EmpInfo
$('#EmpInfo').show();
$.fn.colorbox({ 'href': '#EmpInfo', 'open': true, 'inline': true, 'width': '800px', 'height': '550px' });
$().bind('cbox_closed', function () {
$('#EmpInfo').hide();
});
}
Now for jQuery you will need to have 2 files included in the .aspx page one for jQuery and one for colorbox, which you will need to grab from the following sites.
http://jquery.com/
http://www.designresourcebox.com/colorbox-lightbox-plugin/
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.colorbox-min.js"></script>
Hope this helps...if you need more info I will try to help,
Larry