How to make explorer elements transparent ?¿

from WinCustomize Forums

Hey Guys:

After some time thinking about it, I have finally decided to start my first skin. I have spent almost a week and I am totally absorbed into it. At the same time I am facing a few problems I haven´t figure out how to fix I hope some of the gurus can help me out.

As the title says, I am trying to make some of explorer parts transparent, But when I change the background it doesn´t pick up neither PNG nor TGA alpha information. I have tried changing also the Glass section but with no success. I know there must be some kind of combination I am missing because I have used Naked skin, and tried to emulate its config with no success. I even tried import Naked explorer components and didn´t work out. So, any of you guys knows what I am missing ?¿?   Also, what is Alpha premultiplied and when it is used and Copy alpha channel directly ¿?¿

Thanks in advance.

 

EDu

 

skinning
6,376 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

what explorer parts are you working on, and what os is it? xp, vista windows 7 ect?.....a piccy would be good too, and you can show us exactly what parts yr having issues with.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Thanks for your reply my friend, well basically I am working in all the parts involved like infopane, command bar, scrollbars ... etc and I am having trouble with those that has duplicated configuration, one that says glass and the other doesn´t. Notice in the picture as in the preview of SKS you can see the transparency . The same happens with the other parts mentioned. I tried to put a bmp in one plave and a tga with alpha in the other, standalone png and tgas in both places with the same results. Eventually I would like to try a total transparent explorer like the one in naked skin and see if its comfortable to work with. 

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It seems my pic does not shows. It asked me for an URL and I pointed to my Hdd. It was Png ... well you can tell I am new to this labors ... Please a little direction ?¿

 

Thanks

EDu

 

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Hi eduml369,

Yes, you need to setup the "Glass"variations of the sections you want transparent in your explorer but

there's also another section that will be the trigger for the transparency work, it's the section:

Backgrounds > Edit explorer backgrounds bitmaps > Active window (glass) and Inactive Window (Glass).

Once you set those, all transparency shows up, you just set a image with the opacity you want.

Important: after choosing the image, click in the tab on bottom called "Code Editor" and add this two lines:

Trans=1
PerPixel=1

Those are missing at the moment on SKS.

 

Regards.

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Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Thanks for your help danilloOC !!  That was definitely it. However I still find parts of the skin that should be transparent based on my graphics but after applying they are opaque, which is bizarre since in SKS preview you can see them translucent. I think it must be SKS fault because I have tested a lot of different combinations, checked in code editor tab but didn´t find anything wrong. Maybe you know some magic codes that can help. The parts I am stuck with right now are scrollbars, control panel sidebar and rebar background (the one in the toolbar controls section).

With that covered I would enter the polishing part, it´s almost done only  a few more controls and thats it.

Thanks again, I really appreciate your help.

 

Greetings