Transparency in Non-perpixel Borders
Seems flaky recently
Thursday, January 18, 2007 by Daiwa | Discussion: Skinning
I'm having a heckuva time getting transparency to work consistently with non-perpixel borders lately. Used to be that magic pink worked fine but I happened to modify one of my skins a month or so ago to use magic pink & the magic pink would display, not the transparent bits. On a hunch, I changed to .tga images for left & right borders & that seemed to work, though sometimes either magic pink or black would display instead of the transparent bits & I'd have to reload the skin a few times to get the transparency to work. Now, using .tga's (imported .png's) for the left & right borders results in correct transparency of the right border but black pixels for the transparent bits in the left border no matter how many times I reload the skin. I tried switching back to .bmp's with magic pink & the magic pink shows, despite the fact that magic pink transparency works for the caption/titlebar (with a peculiar exception - see below.)
In addition, an oddity has surfaced with magic pink transparency in the caption/titlebar. I have magic pink pixels in the active titlebar only, but the corresponding pixels in the inactive titlebar paint as black, even though I haven't touched that part of the image.
Anyway, never seemed to have difficulty using magic pink in borders in 4.x or before (not sure I tried it with 5.x until this). I can't find a transparency switch for the non-perpixel borders and I'm not sure why .tga's display correctly at one time and not another, in one place and not another. I'd prefer to stick with .bmp's & magic pink, but that doesn't work for the left & right borders at all now.
Any advice?
TIA
In addition, an oddity has surfaced with magic pink transparency in the caption/titlebar. I have magic pink pixels in the active titlebar only, but the corresponding pixels in the inactive titlebar paint as black, even though I haven't touched that part of the image.
Anyway, never seemed to have difficulty using magic pink in borders in 4.x or before (not sure I tried it with 5.x until this). I can't find a transparency switch for the non-perpixel borders and I'm not sure why .tga's display correctly at one time and not another, in one place and not another. I'd prefer to stick with .bmp's & magic pink, but that doesn't work for the left & right borders at all now.
Any advice?
TIA
I.R. Brainiac
Reply #2 Friday, January 19, 2007 12:49 AM
Reply #2 Friday, January 19, 2007 12:49 AM
Advice?hmmmmmm...
Stay with the 24bit bitmaps,check your pink to see if it really is "magic",check the code and see if its set properly(if I remember correctly,there are no checkboxes for that attribute)
You probably already did all that.
The other issue...Are the active and inactive graphics the same size?Plus I seem to remember a setting somewhere for dynamic frame shapes but I've never used it.
Hope you solve the probs.
Stay with the 24bit bitmaps,check your pink to see if it really is "magic",check the code and see if its set properly(if I remember correctly,there are no checkboxes for that attribute)
You probably already did all that.
The other issue...Are the active and inactive graphics the same size?Plus I seem to remember a setting somewhere for dynamic frame shapes but I've never used it.
Hope you solve the probs.
I.R. Brainiac
Reply #3 Friday, January 19, 2007 12:51 AM
Reply #3 Friday, January 19, 2007 12:51 AM
Also,I have occasionaly seen margin settings affect transparency. 
(as in accidently having them overlap)
(as in accidently having them overlap)
Daiwa
Reply #4 Friday, January 19, 2007 10:44 AM
Reply #4 Friday, January 19, 2007 10:44 AM
Thanks, I.R.
I indeed verified the bitmaps are 24b, the MP is 255/0/255. I took a look at the margin settings, too, but can't see how they would affect the display.
Finally, one of my lost rogue brain cells decided to give me a hint & I remembered .wb4 files can sometimes play havoc - I deleted the .wb4 files and all the temporary files that have the tilde (~) in the name that are generated by either WB or SKS, reloaded the skin and bingo, the right & left borders are displaying with proper trans now.
I still have the black pixels in the inactive titlebar where the magic pink is in the active titlebar - I still want to fix it, but it's relatively minor.
Thanks, again.
I indeed verified the bitmaps are 24b, the MP is 255/0/255. I took a look at the margin settings, too, but can't see how they would affect the display.
Finally, one of my lost rogue brain cells decided to give me a hint & I remembered .wb4 files can sometimes play havoc - I deleted the .wb4 files and all the temporary files that have the tilde (~) in the name that are generated by either WB or SKS, reloaded the skin and bingo, the right & left borders are displaying with proper trans now.
I still have the black pixels in the inactive titlebar where the magic pink is in the active titlebar - I still want to fix it, but it's relatively minor.
Thanks, again.
Daiwa
Reply #6 Friday, January 19, 2007 9:06 PM
Reply #6 Friday, January 19, 2007 9:06 PM
I have no idea how that works or what it is intended to achieve. I should check some of the tutorial stuff again.
For now, I fixed it by making the inactive titlebar "match" the geography of the active title bar with magic pink in the same places in both.
For now, I fixed it by making the inactive titlebar "match" the geography of the active title bar with magic pink in the same places in both.
Daiwa
Reply #8 Friday, January 19, 2007 11:29 PM
Reply #8 Friday, January 19, 2007 11:29 PM
Couldn't find anything about it in any of the tutorials on this site. You know what it's purpose is? Is it to allow a different shape titlebar in the inactive window?
I.R. Brainiac
Reply #9 Friday, January 19, 2007 11:38 PM
Reply #9 Friday, January 19, 2007 11:38 PM
I think it allows different shapes on all borders.
Are you doing per pixel borders?Not sure how that would affect it one way or another.
If you can find one,dl a skin that has different states and see how they did it.
Are you doing per pixel borders?Not sure how that would affect it one way or another.
If you can find one,dl a skin that has different states and see how they did it.
dkjmusic
Reply #10 Saturday, February 3, 2007 5:50 PM
Reply #10 Saturday, February 3, 2007 5:50 PM
Whew...thanks to your rogue brain cell! I was seeing magic pink in the window captions when I loaded the Vector Cell WB, which was created by Ross Harvey with SS 4. I found your post via a Google search, and after I deleted the .WB4 and ~ files, everything now looks good.
You're brilliant.
You're brilliant.
Daiwa
Reply #11 Sunday, February 4, 2007 11:25 AM
Reply #11 Sunday, February 4, 2007 11:25 AM
Thanks, dkjmusic, but Neil Banfield's the brilliant one. I just managed to remember his tip from waaaaay back.
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
Reply #1 Thursday, January 18, 2007 4:47 PM
WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 5 (5.5 (build 84 x86))
WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
You have one monitor in total.
(Default Monitor) 1 is attached to RADEON IGP 340M
Wblind.dll 2006/12/12 16:40:20
Wblind64.dll 2006/10/09 11:51:37
Wbsrv.dll 2006/11/18 14:47:19
Wbconfig.exe 2006/12/20 13:35:02
Wbload.exe 2006/03/13 17:54:14
Wbhelp.dll 2004/09/18 16:37:07
Wbui.dll 2005/12/06 21:29:06
Tray.dll 2006/04/28 18:26:49