Re: Dialog box locked to under title bar. Can we make it fade?

[Marcus Alan Lines <malines gmail com>]

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Federico Di Gregorio
<federico digregorio dndg it> wrote:
> On 11/05/11 17:38, Micah Carrick wrote:
>> Problem with that, for me anyway, is I often need to copy what's
>> underneath and paste into the dialog. So I really do need to move it.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 8:27 AM, G. Michael Carter
>> <mikey carterfamily ca> wrote:
>>> > I've seen comments in this list before about the dialog box needing to move
>>> > so you can see what's underneath, and people pointing to setting to undock
>>> > it.  Seems pointless to keep turning it on/off for one or two windows.
>>> > Then I had a thought.  How about have a way to fade it to see
>>> > what's underneath?  Have it hooked to a hot key or some type of mouse
>>> > gesture?
>
> What about:
>
> 1) the dialog is solid when first appears
> 2) if you move the mouse over it and then out, the dialog fades enough
>   to let you see what's under it
> 3) if you press a special key like control the dialog goes completely
>   transparent and let you select content under it (maybe does make
>   sense to show its outline
>
> The rationale is that (2) is a sensible behaviour useful to everybody
> while (3) should be learned by the user, but then not everybody needs to
> copy what's under the dialog and a power user can just learn it.
>

(2) May be a sensible behavior useful to everybody, but you cannot
assume a user will know that they can move the mouse over it and then
the dialog will fade enough that they will be able to see what is
underneath, it too still has to be learned like option (3).

I didn't know that cutting & pasting information from one application
to another, raises one into the realm of a power user.  Seems like a
relatively basic operation or function of graphical shell to me.

Marcus A. Lines