Setting translucency of individual windows?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I could swear I've seen this, and thought it was an Unsanity haxie, but can't seem to find mention of it on their site...



edit: Duh. Read the freakin' notes for WindowShade, Kick... *sigh*



I'm looking for some way to control the transparency of any window of any app that I select.



Any pointers would be appreciated.



edit: Okay, now that it's public that I'm a dork, can anyone provide a quick clue as to how about doing this programmatically? Doing a bit of UI research, and am *this* close to selling the lead researcher on moving to MacOS X for it, and this is the last piece I need to convince him.



[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: Kickaha ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    [quote]Originally posted by Kickaha:

    <strong>Okay, now that it's public that I'm a dork, can anyone provide a quick clue as to how about doing this programmatically? Doing a bit of UI research, and am *this* close to selling the lead researcher on moving to MacOS X for it, and this is the last piece I need to convince him.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Email the guy who wrote Windowshade and ask.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Considering that they sell the program for money, I didn't want to be rude or presumptive... but I might anyway.



    Figured out how to do it for my own app's windows, (couldn't be easier - one line of code), and it looks like we won't need to do it for other apps' windows. Sticking our fingers in the window ordering might be useful though... hmmm.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    There is a demo app called round transparent window on the Apple Developer site here:



    <a href="http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/Sample_Code/Cocoa/RoundTransparentWindow.htm"; target="_blank">http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/Sample_Code/Cocoa/RoundTransparentWindow.htm</a>;





    In Interface Builder there is an outlet of the Controller called itsWindow which is connected to a window. The code that controls the transparency is:



    [itsWindow setAlphaValue:[sender floatValue]];





    where sender is a slider on the window that the user moves to adjust the alpha as the mini-app is running.





    To set the transparency of windows in an arbitrary application you have to talk to the window manager-it's a little bit trickier.



    [ 10-19-2002: Message edited by: Rick1138 ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 6
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Yup, that's precisely the example I used. Quite slick.



    The Window Manager link is indeed the slightly more tricky part that I'm currently puzzling through.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    That's the only way to do it-the window manager takes care of all the event handling in each app as well.The only reason transparency of Terminal windows can be controlled by setting plist strings is becuase there is code in that particular app that talks to the windows,a few other apps may have the same feature,but I'm not aware of any that do.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Er, right. I understand the event handling mechanism, I understand the theory of why/how I need to interact with the Window Manager... I'm just trying to figure out the *implementation* of how at this point. Thanks, though.
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