Dialogs which have no transient parent or root window being their tranisent parent are the ones which will be visible in the tasklist. All such dialogs will be *always* on top of the window group i.e they would transients for the whole group. 1) Modal dialogs * If you wish to open another window from a modal dialog open *only* a modal dialog and set it's transient parent. 2) Normal dialog without transient parent * If you wish to open another window from a normal dialog open either a normal dialog or a modal dialog only. Set the transient parent for the child dialog if you do not want them to be transient for all the other windows in the group. with transient parent * If you wish to open another window from a normal dialog you could open any type of window.