Re: true transparency

[Michael ROGERS <M Rogers cs ucl ac uk>]

>The hole point of the desktop metaphor is that you *can* stack up windows,
>without fear of confusion! And anyway, why would you want your windows
>transparent if you were going to *avoid* putting them on top of each
>other!

Obviously you would not want all of your windows to be transparent, and you
would not want most windows to be completely transparent. Alpha channel 
support would allow partially transparent windows.

>You'd be moving windows about in order to get them in a position where you
>could understand their contents! What is the point? Why would it be
>pretty? If you want to see what's behind a window, you move it out of the
>way. The point of a window, is seeing what is *in* it!

Yes, the contents would still have to be opaque  :)

>Pseudo transparent is cool, 'cos you can work without obscuring the
>beautiful background you just spent hours creating. You can still read
>text against it, and work with it. If you tried to read text with a gmc
>window behind it with 'true' transparency enabled, even if the
>windows were only *slightly* overlapping, it wouldn't be legible! I truly
>believe if such a feature was available, you'd show it to your friend,
>play for 5 minutes, then turn it off and get back to work.
>
>Just try to picture 'true' transparency, whilst looking at your average
>desktop. Chaos.
>
>No?

Not necessarily. Partial true transparency would look better than pseudo 
transparency, and it would be just as usable. I agree, large areas of 
complete transparency would be very confusing, just like completely clean
French windows.


Michael Rogers