Feature request: open stack visuals

[Scott Rossi]

On Tuesday, March 12, 2002, at 11:17  AM, Karl Becker wrote:

>>>  Going crazy!  Wish to implement a visual effect on opening a stack
>>>  with the GO command either via:
>>
> ...one thing I noticed my programming cousin did in VisualBasic for 
> Windows was:
> 1) he gets the contents of the entire screen
> 2) makes a new window that contains an image of the entire screen 
> (usually the windows desktop)
> 3) with VisualBasic he can draw images right into an off-screen GWorld, 
> so he was able to create the illusion of a weird, very irregular window 
> on the desktop by simply drawing an alpha-masked image on top of this 
> fake desktop image
>
> You probably could fake it somehow with MetaCard, tho... Try taking an 
> image of the first card of the going-to stack, do a visual effect to 
> show that image in your current stack, then just open the going-to 
> stack at the exact same location as the current stack.

Already done.  You play with "camouflage.mc" at

   http://www.tactilemedia.com/downloads/

Not only does this demonstrate "window cloaking" of sorts, but it can 
also do a simple magnify effect.  A reset button is included but will 
have to be messed with to work correctly on Windows without recapturing 
the stack window (interesting that taking a capture on the Windows 
desktop reveals any hidden MC windows).

-----

The above technique was recently discussed a bit on the list.  At a high 
level, faking a custom window is fairly easy to do, but it is not a very 
good workaround for 2 reasons:

1) If the user switches to another application and places yours in the 
background, any changes to foreground window positions will not be 
reflected in your false backdrop.  The only way get around this is to 
hide your app when suspended and then recapture the desktop when your 
app is resumed.  Panic's Audion application somehow traps any foreground 
window moves/changes and updates itself while it is in the background.  
If there was some way MC could "know" what was happening in foreground 
apps, you could use the same technique.

2) In OSX, all windows are drawn with a live dropshadow cast by the 
window's true dimensions, thus any fake masking is clearly visible.

Still waiting anxiously for a custom window solution in MC 2.4... :-)

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director, Tactile Media
scott at tactilemedia.com
http://www.tactilemedia.com