The old flagging dialog box politely "stepped aside" or wasn't so big that it prevented a quick re-scan of a post and possibly a copy/paste of things in the post you wanted to highlight to the mods.

The improved flagging dialog hides the post being flagged. Now, with all these new flagging options, it's sometimes necessary to have a quick re-read to make sure you're picking the flag reason that matches best. If you've started typing in the "other" box, then you have to select/copy, close the dialog, re-read, re-open, etc, etc.

It kinda gets in the way.

It would be nice if the box

  • were moved down a bit, to directly under the last line of text in a post (provided there was space available, perhaps); or

  • were draggable so users could move it out of the way

This is also a problem with similar dialogs such as the closure dialog. It's particularly problematic with the Close as Duplicate Dialog as it's quite possible you'll want to review the question or click links to suggested duplicates in the comments, which might be blocked by the big overlay.

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It actually comes up in the current center of the window. (Try scrolling down the page, then clicking flag. Not saying this should or shouldn't be changed, just pointing out the behaviour is a bit different than you think.) –  Jon Seigel Jan 14 '11 at 18:10
@jon - I guess that's a bit of a workaround. –  Kev Jan 14 '11 at 18:14
@jon ~ Talk about a hack ... –  jcolebrand Jan 18 '11 at 15:27
It seems like there has to be somebody around here smart enough to be able to figure out how to drag something around without using jQuery. –  Gabe Mar 26 '11 at 19:19
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3 Answers

Browsers have gotten sufficiently not garbage in the (checks) two years since this request came in that we revisited it as part of the other dialog changes.

Starting with the next build the flagging and closing popups will be dragable (the "title" at the top is the handle in both cases).

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Is there a way to make this more intuitive? It's not immediately obvious that the dialog is draggable. –  NullUserException อ_อ Feb 6 '13 at 0:58
@NullUserExceptionอ_อ Yeah, we'll probably add a bar or something; couldn't quite decide what, and since it already works didn't see a reason not to ship it. For now the indicator is only that the cursor changes. –  Kevin Montrose Feb 6 '13 at 1:01
"grips" are a standard way to hint at that:… not sure how well it'd work with the style of the box, especially making it less cluttered –  Ben Brocka Feb 6 '13 at 1:08
@KevinMontrose, could you give me a little hint as to how I can piggy-back onto this functionality? Apparently just adding the handle class to my h2 isn't enough... –  Benjol Feb 14 '13 at 8:18
@Benjol There's a method StackExchange.helpers.bindMovablePopups() that's called when popups are loaded. –  Kevin Montrose Feb 14 '13 at 19:15
@KevinMontrose, thanks! Now updated to V1.2.8 –  Benjol Feb 15 '13 at 8:04
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A possible alternative that I used for my AutoComment script is to add a 'seethrough' link. When you hover over it, you can 'see through' the popup.

enter image description here

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I appreciate the work that goes into a lot of these GM scripts, but I often feel they're a cop out for certain UX annoyances that should be fixed by the Team. –  Kev Mar 15 '11 at 14:12
@Kev, maybe. I see it as off-the-records beta-testing of potential new functionality. Often they get official sanction, sometimes they get adopted. –  Benjol Mar 15 '11 at 14:16
That was the first thing that popped into my mind :P –  Lix Feb 8 '12 at 21:40
I want this for blouses –  bobobobo Feb 8 '12 at 21:49
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This requires pulling in a large jQuery UI dependency, and given that I think jQuery UI is pretty crappy and bloated.. unlikely.

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gasps in horror. Don't listen to him jQuery, just turn away –  Michael Mrozek Jan 18 '11 at 3:59
no no, he said jQueryUI ... I think that's fine @Michael –  jcolebrand Jan 18 '11 at 3:59
@drachenstern Oh! Ok, that's fine. I thought SO depended on jQuery already, I was a little confused where the sudden dependency came from –  Michael Mrozek Jan 18 '11 at 4:04
@MichaelMrozek :p ;) –  jcolebrand Jan 18 '11 at 4:05
but it's already there. you're already including it. I opened up javascript console in FF and Chrome and ran the line above and it made the dialog draggable –  Kip Jan 18 '11 at 4:57
to confirm i wasn't crazy i tried it again... it didn't work on this MSO post. I tried on the first question I saw on SO (…) and it didn't work. So I ran it on the page I ran it on earlier (…) and it worked. So if the UI is not intended to be included, is it a bug that it's being included on some pages? –  Kip Jan 18 '11 at 5:02
it is also possible just to include the jQuery UI draggable portion across Google's CDN without having to include the whole jQuery UI library –  xiaohouzi79 Jan 18 '11 at 5:02
if you view the source here (…) you'll see <script src="" type="text/javascript"></script> at the top, being explicitly included. But it isn't being included on all pages. –  Kip Jan 18 '11 at 5:08
@Kip I think it's included to use for the bounty slider –  Yi Jiang Jan 18 '11 at 6:57
Given that you're pulling in 300k of script, 29k of minified jQueryUI for the draggable bits is a drop in the ocean. Methinks you haven't used the UI bits recently, and "crappy" is a bit unfair. Either way as I also highlighted that dialogue does get in the way:…. This makes flagging a pretty awkward experience. –  Kev Jan 18 '11 at 9:41
@kev I'm about to fire someone unless they remove that jQuery UI dependency (for bounties), so consider it gone. –  Jeff Atwood Jan 18 '11 at 10:00
Fair enough, but at least consider fixing that dialogue so it doesn't get in the way. it really slows down the review process. –  Kev Jan 18 '11 at 10:14
@Jeff: Did you change your mind, or why is that calendar on the profile for the consecutive days also jQueryUI dependent? –  Time Traveling Bobby Apr 28 '11 at 14:33
@bobby I believe that only appears for the current user and devs/mods, so it's less objectionable –  Jeff Atwood Apr 29 '11 at 7:08
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