mouse@lightning.mcrcim.mcgill.EDU (03/03/91)
> I know this topic has been discussed before, Indeed it has. It comes up periodically in various (slightly different) forms. > Could someone give me some info on how to make a transparent window. It depends on precisely what you mean. For example, do you want to be able to display graphics in this window? If the stuff underneath changes, do the changes have to show through as well? If you don't want to display anything in the transparent window, there is a perfect solution: use an InputOnly window. If you want to display stuff, but don't care if hidden changes don't get updated until the "transparent" window goes away, you may be able to use an InputOutput window with a background of None. If you want to display stuff and want changes to show through, and are willing to require the server to support the SHAPE extension (not unreasonable, IMO) you may be able to reshape the overlying window to match the graphics. (This causes the window to be nonexistent rather than existing but transparent in the "show-through" areas. If this bothers you, use an InputOnly overlay to deal with input.) Unfortunately in most implementations of SHAPE, changing shapes is comparatively slow, so this doesn't work very well if you change shape often. I think that covers most possibilities. If you want to display stuff, want changes to show through, and want to change the shape of the opaque area often, I have no suggestions, except to use the SHAPE solution and beat on your server vendor to speed up shape changes. der Mouse old: mcgill-vision!mouse new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu