Membranophonist’s Ramblings

In Microsoft’s Word 2004 for Mac OS X, the formatting palette goes partly transparent when it is not in use. I think this helps users concentrate on the main document by decreasing the visual tool clutter they face. I whipped up a mockup of this concept applied to the ever popular SubEthaEdit and Zengobi’s Curio.

Contextual Palette Opacity (300K PDF)

I don’t think it would be wise to apply transparency to network activity palettes such as those in OmniWeb and Mail. They aren’t key parts of the application’s interface and they might be distracting because of the frequent progress animations.