Transparency confusion

[Ken Norris]

Hi Dar,

> Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 20:59:35 -0700
> From: Dar Scott <dsc at swcp.com>
> Subject: Re: Transparency confusion
>
> On Saturday, December 27, 2003, at 08:45 PM, Ken Norris wrote:
> 
>> Everything Rev displays actually happens in a window, even
>> windowShapes. But
>> displaying scrolling text as windowshapes won't work AFAIK.
> 
> Why is this?  Is it the time required to change windowShapes?  Is it
> the work required to get the image to make the windowShapes?
-----------
Well, yeah...all of the above. I think you'd have to make each character a
separate graphical element in a windowShape, then move the whole window as a
unit to get your scrolling effect. I'm sure it can be done, but you'll
probably have to scroll it, i.e., move the window, fairly slowly, or it will
flicker due to the OS redrawing the window at each new location as it moves.

It may be worth experimenting, but I also think processor speeds and OS
versions will cause some variations in performance. Another trick will be to
keep the window small, in this case keeping the height (for the text) to
whatever minimum it can be to look right.

I still think sprites as screen widgets would be a better solution, but I
don't think that's supported yet.

HTH,
Ken N.