Techniques for presenting a modal dialog box in a graphical user interface are described herein. According to one embodiment, a semi-transparent panel is displayed superimposed on a graphical user interface (GUI) page in response to a first user interaction with the GUI page. The GUI page provides a user interface for managing a virtualization system. A dialog box is then displayed on top of the semi-transparent panel, where the dialog box is to receive an input from the user. An alert is generated in response to a second user interaction with an area of the semi-transparent panel other than the dialog box, where the alert indicates that the second user interaction is invalid. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.