What is the least distracting way to show some new information?

Question

I'm working on an editor for novel authors. After seeing programs like DarkRoom, I wanted to add an full screen mode. In addition to that, I'd like to offer an option to show information about characters and other relevant data as you type (so you don't have to grab the mouse just because you can't remember a detail about one of your characters). OTOH, it should not distract you from what you currently think.

For this, I need to know the least distracting way to show this new information. Can you point me to some research or examples for this? What is the opposite of the "blink" tag?

[EDIT] While the "press a key" solution would work, I'd still prefer a solution which feels like "the editor is actively trying to help/support me". I already know keywords which point to relevant information, so I was thinking to display that if the cursor stays for a few moments on a keyword. This should happen without any user interaction -- as if the software was reading the persons mind.

Answer 1

If I understand your idea, this feature is only for when the user is looking for some information. Why not use the standard shortcut for auto-completion in IDE (ctrl + space), and then display your data in a "tooltiptext way" ? This way, it won't bother you while you're writing, but then if you're looking for a piece of information, you don't have to look for it ; you juste press two keys and voilà. With this system, the problem of "how it's displayed" is really less important, no ?

edit : My point being : there is no better "non-distracting" way to show some information than displaying it only when requested.

Answer 2

I haven't looked into your app yet, but if you have any "notification area" (e.g. to the right ofthe menu bar):

When there is a "known name" under the text cursor, show e.g. "Who is John? [F9]" in a corner. Maybe display it / fade it in only when the cursor stays there for a few seconds, to avoid "corner of the eye activity" when just browsing. (The hotkey should work immediately, though)

With an active text selection, the same key might allow to create a new item. Indicating that functionality is a bit harder, as you don't have an idea that this is a name, and thre are probably many thing you can do to a selection.

Also, consider registering e.g. "Johnny" as an alternate name for John that references the same information.