[Use-revolution] Re: Was HTML Text Files

[Terry Judd]

>  >> Am I correct in my assumption that a floating pallet stack window cannot
>>>  have an invisible background such that a larger stack beneath 
>>>shows through?
>>>  This is where I originally went wrong and became confused.
>>
>>  No, you can't (easily) make one window show through another. On the Mac, at
>>  least, there is a way to do this that doesn't have anything to do with
>>  Revolution. It involves using a special window type, and that's about all I
>>  know about it. There used to be a thing called Odo (the shape-shifting
>>  character on Star Trek: Deep Space 9) that would do this, and 
>>QuickTime 5 has
>>  it built in. I don't know how they're doing it.
>
>There is no such thing as a true "transparent" window.  You can create the
>illusion of a window being transparent or translucent by taking a screenshot
>of the window's current position, displaying the screenshot as the
>background of the window and then drawing your interface elements on top of
>the screenshot.  The tough thing about this technique is that if the user
>moves the window, you need to hide it before allowing the user to access it
>since the screenshot must be updated to reflect the window's new position on
>the desktop.

I'm not sure how it does it but Audion (mp3 player from Panic 
www.panic.com) has live draggable translucent windows that display 
beautifully.

Terry...

>BTW, Odo is for creating custom shaped windows (read: non-rectangular) and
>to date is pretty much the only way to get custom windows in MC Mac (unless
>someone has written something new).
>
>Regards,
>
>Scott Rossi
>Creative Director
>
>Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
>Email: scott at tactilemedia.com
>Web: www.tactilemedia.com


-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Dr Terry Judd

Lecturer in Instructional Design / Multimedia Developer
Biomedical Multimedia Unit
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences
The University of Melbourne
Email: t.judd at bmu.unimelb.edu.au
Phone: 03 9344 0187
Fax: 03 9344 4998
___________________________________________________________________________