A modal window is not a pop-up window. Popup window means another browser window is launched and it has it's own html DOM. Otherwise, it's just a routine locator on the only browser that is up. In case of another popup, since there are 2 windows (2 DOM's), the system has to know which window you want to interact with. In Subject7, locator definition you can specify the popup window which is a text that exist on the target window and doesn't exist on the other. If you want to close a popup window you can use the command CLOSE_POPUP.
Hope this helps.