With modeless dialog boxes, people can change things in their documents, perform actions with the data in their documents, or get information about their documents or applications. This feature is useful for tasks such as finding and replacing text in a word processor or numbers in a spreadsheet. Use a modeless dialog box instead of a movable modal dialog box whenever possible so that you can preserve the user's ability to perform tasks in any order. Figure 6-2 shows a typical modeless dialog box. Because modeless dialog boxes are movable, people can place them out of the way of the current point of interest in their documents.
People can also keep modeless dialog boxes open and available.
This option might be useful if a person wants to compare information about several documents, which is possible with Info windows in the Finder. Figure 6-3 shows two such windows on a desktop. When your application displays a modeless dialog box, it should preset any controls to some logical values. Inc. All rights reserved.