also for newbies, i am finding this x-ray setting so much better then the wireframe view. I even made some shelf shortcuts for them.

turn on
modelEditor -e -xray 1 modelPanel1;
modelEditor -e -xray 1 modelPanel2;
modelEditor -e -xray 1 modelPanel3;
modelEditor -e -xray 1 modelPanel4;

turn off
modelEditor -e -xray 0 modelPanel1;
modelEditor -e -xray 0 modelPanel2;
modelEditor -e -xray 0 modelPanel3;
modelEditor -e -xray 0 modelPanel4;