Re: Transparent background in window?

[Brett Granger <bdgranger alum mit edu>]

Joachim Backes wrote:
> On 04-Sep-2002 Brett Granger wrote: 
>
> > Though I keep hoping somebody will be able to explain to me otherwise, 
> > there does not appear to be any way to make top level X windows 
> > transparent or translucent with the stock GTK (due to a limitation in X 
> > itself, I believe)...
>
>
> Hi, this is not correct:
>
> when working with pure X11, you can use the
>
>         Nonrectangular Window Shape Extension

Thanks, Joachim.

But I am not interested in non-rectangular windows via the shape 
extension (which I have used quite a bit) -- I am interested in 
translucent rectangular (alpha-blended) top level windows, preferably 
with minimal modification to X or to GTK.  There have been previous 
discussions on this list (or was it the app-devel list?) about this, 
indicating that it is possible with DirectFB or perhaps faked using a 
patch from Owen.  Seems like it ought to be possible to create something 
using the render extension, but performance might be an issue?  I'm 
working in a remote display environment, so DirectFB might not really be 
feasible...

--Brett