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Fast Alpha-Blending In Your GUI
visnu writes: "I've been waiting for this for 2 years now -- a REAL glass-like windowing system. And yes, it's Microsoft to do it. Ever since W2k came out, and they included alpha-blending in the GDI, I was tempted to write a little tool to turn on any window's transparency, but of course I'm way too lazy to do that. These guys weren't though: glass2k runs in the systray and handles turning on any window's transparency. yes, here's a screenshot. I'm not too sure about the speed in W2k, but in XP w/ the newest Nvidia drivers and a somewhat recent video card, it's hardware accelerated, and yes, you should be drooling." Update: 11/26 19:00 GMT by T : Links updated, so hopefully you'll be able to actually get to the content again :)
Now I need to stack *10* maximized windows in front of my porn when mom comes. If I put just one like I'm doing now she would see through.
Athough I can't really think of any practical reason for it - when I'm working / concentrating I usually minimise all but a couple of windows anyway.
And I think it could be a little dangerous while surfing at work. You know, the boss comes around and you swiftly alt-tab to your work window...to find that it is 90% transparent.
Does look nice, though.
Just a thought,
Matt.
yes, I must admit my productivity increased by several magnitudes since that nifty swadow on the mouse pointer got there....
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
And its almost as annoying as the menu on the linked page.
[news for me, stuff that doesn't matter]
And this is how we'll enter the brave new era of computing: Not by actually designing and using tools to make our lives more productive, convenient, and satisfying, but by slumping in our chairs and staring at useless eye-candy while we touch ourselves. I can't wait for the future.
Do domain names matter?
...any slashdotter who is a Windows developer, and had the idea in the first place. For the rest of us, we need somebody else to do it and then post a link to the download.
If only there were some site that allowed links like this to be posted to the interested geek masses. It'd really be appropriate on a site like that.
"I wrote an app that did the same work about 6 months ago .... I submitted it to download.com, but of course, they rejected it."
Yeah, and I wrote the Star Wars triology, only someone lost my submission and now I've got no proof to show people that I'm not a lying toss-piece.
Visit here to see my new multi-tasking operating system that I wrote all by myself. I'm wonderful.
Whaddaya know? I run win2k on a box at work and I never noticed the shadow before. I guess I must be one of the few that doesn't give a rats ass.
If you don't use a screensaver, eventually your windows desktop will be burnt into your monitor with disastrous results
hmm, looks like my old laptop with its passive dstn screen.... complete with burn in
no, but you should be able to see anyone who's sitting on the other side of your monitor.
That was classic intercourse!
Come out of the bar and fight like a nerd !
bau
And the mouse should kind of make a bloop sound as it passes through the layers of windows while leaving a wake in its trail.
That should be the next change to the desktop idiom, IMHO.
:wq
...is to can make a window larger than your desktop, 100% transparent, and always on top.
Maybe they could fix it so it makes all those porn/X10 popups transparent.
Old? It doesn't matter that every precollege teen has tinkered with transparency windowing systems; I'm sure someone has been issued a patent for it and is about to IPO. Someone wants to own this now. Expect lawyers to follow.
Not to bust your bubble or anything, but the "transparent" terminal hack is old. It is not done with per-window alpha transparency. It just maps the root background to the terminal background with an appropriate offset and darkening. This is obvious if you look at the screenshot. The lower portion of the ./sftp window does not show through into the terminal.
It is a clever, fast hack and probably more useful than honest-to-goodness alpha transparency. Careful choice of background image and foreground text color can keep the term actually legible, which is not necessarily the case with full transparency. Having said all of that, it has been in rxvt, aterm, and countless others for a long time.
OOOooo, now that is the reason to have transparent windows!!!
Laetitia Casta should *never, ever* be obscured, IMO.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Its bad enough spending 10 hours a day in front of a monitor without having to look at that sort of stuff! I had eyeache within seconds of looking at the screenshot. Lovely idea, but pointless eye candy :)
Went to the optician complaining about eyeache the other day - she said "stop using computers so much". Hmm - and how did she expect I was going to pay her?
We can finally make pop up adds truly disappear!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
... blue screen transparency? :)
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