Feature Request: Popovers

[patrickbkr]

In the debugger I'd like to sometimes use popovers. Specific cases:

• A folder selection dialog. Contains a text input (where to type a path in), an auto-completion list (as another popover), OK button, Cancel button.
• A quick file open dialog. Similar layout to above.
• "Are you sure you want to quit?"
• "You opened the debugger without any arguments, type them here:" Then have a text-box and below auto-updating labels that give the command line that's equivalent to the provided args and OK and Quit buttons.

Why would I like popovers / dialogs instead of full-screen views in some cases? Full-screen views have the potential to confuse users that are not yet able to follow the flow of the UI in their head. Popovers leave the UI that prompted the dialog in the background, giving a sense of "the UI I know is still there, one hit of ESC, will surely bring me back."

Sidenote: That's also a reason, why I'd like to keep the buttons at the bottom of the UI always visible, so there is a bit of context that never changes and provides a UI navigation top-level.

References I have in mind: vim autocomplete popovers, ncurses dialogs.

[japhb]

These are definitely a good idea, and have been churning in the back of my head for a while; this is the reason that widgets know their Z index, for example -- to keep track of multiple layers of popovers, dialogs, etc.

I have a proof of concept in another project, but it needs some generalization to be useful as part of T-W itself.