Transparent browser widgets?

[Richard Gaskin]

jonathandlynch wrote:

 > Apparently, both WebView (android) and uiwebview (iOS) have
 > transparent modes.
 >
 > Would it be easy for the LC team to implement a transparent mode for
 > browser widgets, where the background color is transparent, allowing
 > other objects to show through?
 >
 > This would obviate the need for some the processor intensive image
 > transfers in and out of the widget.
 >
 > I know one would have to set the background-color of the body element
 > to transparent and set a couple of settings in the WebView calls. Is
 > that all it would take?

I'd guess that it wouldn't be hard to implement, but much harder to 
implement in a way performant enough for anyone to want to use. :)

I believe the browser widget maintains its own buffer, blitted to 
screen.  This makes it fast, but prevents it from mixing its rendering 
with LC-native controls.

For mixed rendering it would need to render within the compositing 
process Mark Waddingham outlined here a while back in answer to Jacque's 
question about acceleratedRendering.  My guess would be that doing so as 
rapidly as a browser might conceivably update would be computationally 
expensive.

That's just a guess, though.  I'd be happy to be wrong. Integrated 
rendering of the browser widget would be nice.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com