ik@snoopy.ctt.bellcore.com (Ik Su Yoo) (05/12/91)
I know this sounds crazy, but is there any way of outputing something (like drawing text) to an InputOnly window? What I want to be able to do is draw some stuff on a "transparent" window. Is there another way of achieving this? (I should RTFM, but I'm Xt/Motif user and don't have proper Xlib documentation.) Also, is it possible to write a Motif widget whose window is InputOnly? Thanks in advance for your help. Ik Su Yoo RRC 1H-229, (908) 699-5764 ik@ctt.bellcore.com
mouse@lightning.mcrcim.mcgill.EDU (der Mouse) (05/16/91)
> I know this sounds crazy, but is there any way of outputing something > (like drawing text) to an InputOnly window? No. > What I want to be able to do is draw some stuff on a "transparent" > window. Ah. This is a relatively common request. What everybody seems to want is a window that is either transparent (catches events but lets what's behind it show through, even when the stuff in back changes) or nonexistent (neither obscures stuff behind nor catches events), except where something has been drawn on it. Standard X does not provide anything of the sort. The closest suggestion I can make is to use the SHAPE extension to shape the window to fit the graphics. (This gives the second alternative I mentioned above, nonexistence. To get transparency, conver it with an InputOnly window and diddle your event handling.) Unfortunately, changing shapes is typically very slow, so this is practical only when you're doing something whose shape doesn't change often. (Also, if your application may have to run on servers that are old enough to lack SHAPE, it naturally can't work.) The next closest suggestion is to use a window with background None. This has the disadvantage of not letting changes to the windows underneath show through. der Mouse old: mcgill-vision!mouse new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu