page_title: Project Looking Glass
section_title: Features
hierarchical_section_title: Project Looking Glass / Features
caption_attribution_description: English: An LG3D screenshot showing an application configuration using the backside of its window
context_page_description: Project Looking Glass is a now inactive free software project under the GPL to create an innovative 3D desktop environment for Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It was sponsored by Sun Microsystems.
  Looking Glass is programmed in the Java language using the Java 3D system to remain platform independent. Despite the use of graphics acceleration features, the desktop explores the use of 3D windowing capabilities for both existing application programs and ones specifically designed for Looking Glass.
  There is a Live CD available from Project Looking Glass. The Looking Glass environment is also included on a Live DVD from the Granular Linux project.
context_section_description: One of its most notable features is the creation of reversible windows. This capability can be used for features like allowing the user to write notes and comments on the windows' backs, or displaying application dialogs without risking their being detached from the application they relate to. All windows start by looking like a normal 2D or 2.5D window, but can be manipulated as thin slate-like 3D objects which can be set at any angle or turned completely around by the user.
  Other features include tilting all the window to assist the user to pick up a desired window, provision of a panning virtual desktop, icons that reflect the live status of the window they represent and zooming of a window when it receives focus.
  There are a few designs that Looking Glass implemented which appeared in other products in later years. One technique became popular by Apple's Dashboard widgets is configuration of an application (widget) by flipping its visual and performing updates on the backside of it. The visual of Apple's macOS Dock became similar to Looking Glass's look when Leopard was released.Windows 7 implements a feature for window selection that hides other windows than the one that the user placed the mouse cursor on a thumbnail above the taskbar.  It resembles Looking Glass's usage of transparency for window selection using window thumbnails on the taskbar.
caption: Configuring an application using its backside of the window represented as a 3D slate in the 3D space
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