In an information processing device, in the case where a window is edited by a user referring to data of a window which is positioned behind all the other displayed windows, the window to be referred to is touched, a function key displayed on the left bottom corner of the display screen is pressed, and a portion of the window to be referred to is dragged by a pen so as to specify a region to be referred to. This allows the portion of the window specified by the pen to be displayed in front of the window to be edited. As a result, in the case where editing of data is carried out on an active window referring to a window which is not an active window, the window to be referred to and the window to be edited are both clearly recognized without carrying out a complicated operation.

When displaying a scene on a display screen in which a translucent object and a background object of the translucent object overlap in a virtual space, data of a background object stored in a storage device is continuously read, a translucent calculation is performed between data of the background object and data of the translucent object overlapping the background object, and data of the result of the translucent calculation is continuously written into the storage device. Here, read of the background object data and the translucent calculation, or the translucent calculation and write of data of the translucent calculation result can be simultaneously performed. Further, the translucent calculation can be divided into a plurality of calculations, and the plurality of calculations can be performed simultaneously. With this method, translucent calculation can be performed in a short time.

A method for assisting window selection in a graphical user interface determines one or more current top-level windows to be displayed to a user for selection by the user. The user is then able to select a particular window of the one or more windows being displayed. In some embodiments, the one or more current top-level windows are displayed as translucent windows. Additionally, in some embodiments, a user is able to cycle through multiple sets of one or more windows in order to locate a particular window.

A method, system, and program for changing the alpha levels of an application window to reflect the status of a non-interactive computing task are provided. An alpha level is determined to represent a status of a non-interactive computing task. A transparency of at least a selected portion of a displayable object associated with the non-interactive computing task is graphically adjusted according to the alpha level, such that the status of the non-interactive computing task is displayed by the associated displayable object, where one type of displayable object includes an application window.

Help functionality is described for integrating help information into a primary application in a just-in-time fashion. The help functionality can perform this task by providing a see-through panel which is presented on top of an application interface provided by the primary application. A user can move a mark on the see-through panel to identify features of the application interface concerning which he or she may have questions. The help functionality responds by presenting potentially context-sensitive help information to the user in audio mode and/or visual mode. If the visual mode is selected, the help functionality can present the help information on the see-through panel itself, and/or can dynamically move parts of the application interface to accommodate the display of the help information. The help functionality can supply the help information from a local source and/or a remote source, in an automated manner and/or a manual manner (e.g., using a remote human assistant).