Fluent Design adds Reveal highlight to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update brings a very interesting new feature to the table: the Reveal highlight. Reveal is a lighting effect that brings depth and focus to your app’s interactive elements.

Reveal Highlight on Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

The Reveal effect activates when you move your mouse and works by exposing geometry around your cursor. It quickly fades out once you’ve moved on. Reveal exposes the hidden borders around objects, helping you better understand the space that you are interacting with.

The new Reveal Highlight  behavior is an interaction visualization that helps guide users. Reveal is now enabled by default on ListView and other XAML collection controls in experiences that target the Fall Creators Update.

There are two main visual components to Reveal:

• The Hover Reveal which is tied directly to the content being hovered over, and applies a halo shape around the hovered item.
• The Border Reveal which is applied to the focused item and items nearby. Its purpose is to show you that you can interact with nearby objects in a similar manner to the one currently focused.
  

Microsoft suggests that Reveal is best used when enabled on the main content of your app, collections or list-like controls.

There are four controls that automatically use Reveal:

• ListView
• TreeView
• NavigationView
• AutosuggestBox

Users can enable the Reveal highlight on other areas as well. However, Microsoft advises you not to enable this feature on static backgrounds, text, or images that you can’t interact with nor with content dialogs, content notifications or security decisions.

The Reveal highlight is a Fluent Design-inspired feature. Microsoft will use this new design language to explore blurring and transparency effects on Windows 10.

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