Taskbar Transparency Faked

win2k3 wb 5, geforce 6800, Arrow

The same Problem I See with the Titlebar. if you open two Explorerwindows, one is behind the other, and you move the top explorer window with the titlebar into the white area where normally webpages are shown, then the color from the top titlebar is completly gone.
I then tried if this is happening also with one window against a white background, but it seems, that i'm not able to change the background color from the desktop. The system is not accepting this change.

The arrow titlebars are clear so if you put them over a white background they will appear to be white.

spot1701: No other app can make the task bar support per pixel alpha.  Only a constant alpha setting or colour keyed transparency.

Neil: No other app can make the task bar support per pixel alpha. Only a constant alpha setting or colour keyed transparency.

Pardon my ignorance, because I don't know the difference.
But I know that WB's taskbar is not transparent (i.e. you can't see objects placed behind it), and other apps CAN make it transparent (i.e. you can see objects placed behind it).

I just tried with Aura to see what spot is talking about and its true. I set my taskbar to auto-hide and always on top. I put a window where the taskbar would be. When I made the taskbar appear I couldn't see the windows titlebar behind the taskbar (I have my bar at the top of the screen). So it appears it is not see-through exactly. Not that is a problem for me.
I do see proper transparency in other areas where its used, like the Start Menu and right click menus.

Yes, but the differense is that the taskbar is evenly transparent all over. But with perpixel, it got various transparency levels.

Yes, but the differense is that the taskbar is evenly transparent all over. But with perpixel, it got various transparency levels.

I get what per-pixel transparency is, but maybe I'm having a dense moment as I don't see how that affects the fact that the taskbar appears to simply show a static view of the portion of the wallpaper that is directly behind it instead of showing, as has been mentioned, whatever is placed behind it. Am I missing something? Be gentle, I'm not intimately familiar with all the graphics lingo..

Its a technical reason due to limitations in the Windows OS.  Constant alpha & colourkeying would work with live transparency, but per pixel cannot without some serious recoding of explorer.

Its a technical reason due to limitations in the Windows OS. Constant alpha & colourkeying would work with live transparency, but per pixel cannot without some serious recoding of explorer

So is contast alpha not possible? Or however other apps do it? There must be a lot of "serious recoding of explorer" going on.
It's a shame if you aren't able to do it because all the other new features look so good, but this "faked" transparency is a bit of a let down.

spot1701,

What other applications are you claiming support actual transparency in the taskbar? I'm not sure I'd call it a real letdown, teh new features are awesome and the fact that I can't see a window behind my taskbar doesn't detract from that in the least.

There must be a lot of "serious recoding of explorer"

I don't think so unless they stole code from MS, in which case I wouldn't expect them to be around for long. I think the type of re-coding of explorer can't be done anywhere but at MS.

Not a real let down. A bit of a one.
I guess they won't call it a bug, but when something doesn't work like it appears it should work...we enter a gray area. Trust me, I know.

A simple google for "transparent taskbar" will yield plenty of results for other software that do this. Maybe they fake it in other ways, but it works.
I'm using currently using TrueLaunchBar to transparentify () my taskbar. And it just finishes off the whole look, especially with the Aura skin. The taskbar looks sweet when it's really transparent.

I use TweakXP Pro to make the taskbar transparent.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.

TweakXP Pro, TrueLaunchBar or any other app which claims to give you a semi transparent taskbar just gives you one constant semi transparent value which is applied to the taskbar.  We have this kind of feature in WindowFX for example.  This is live transparency but the entire window gets the same level of transparency.

The feature in WindowBlinds 5 allows the skin author to decide on the alpha on a per pixel basis.  For example you could have a taskbar which was near 100% invisible apart from the text contents & icons etc.  This is not something you can do with constant semi transparency.  In the future we will be exposing the ability to blur the wallpaper under the taskbar as well.  Again this is something that cannot be done without the 'faked' transparency.

So in summary : Constant Alpha Blending can be live, Per Pixel Alpha blending on the taskbar cannot be.

I looks like the question is: will WindowBlinds only support per-pixel alpha blending?

It seems many people would be happy if it simply did (inferior?) constant blending - is it too much to support both modes (in a configurable way and not necessarily at once)?

hi

i quite like it and so far it has been fine but i just have this one question can i still use windows blinds 4 or will the the things work i used before on wb4 on wb5 as well

 

other wise wb5 is great to change skins do i have all ways restart pc thats what i had to do the first time i used it

hope some one can tell me

thank you

alan charity

I'm not technically savvy in this area, either, but my XP rig's video only supports constant alpha, not per pixel, so I have the same question as Chris_TH in reply #14 - will WB support both types of transparency? And will it be skin-independent, meaning will WB default to constant transparency on rigs without per pixel even if the skin graphics use per pixel?

Thanks,
Daiwa