Re: Is Alpha Channel support in next release plan?

[Miroslav Silovic <miro puremagic com>]

Christof Petig wrote:

> But it has to be in gdk, too. AFAIK it is not possible to make widgets 
> partially translucent (e.g. entries within a container which has a 
> background image). So even if X11 needs work to support translucent 
> windows, gdk needs some work which will not hurt to have before the 
> X11 feature is available.
>
> I'd love to see partially translucent entries and translucent 
> containers with tooltips (tooltip means xwindow, this seem to imply 
> opacity).
>
> I even offer time to help implementing (but not before Nov).

You -could- use non-X11 implementations of gdk as a testbed for this 
(directFB, MacOSX (is it available?) or *gasp* win32).

> > I think that a special OpenGL extension to X11 could be created that
> > would make this type of thing possible.
>
>
> I dare to say that the timely availability of this feature will be an 
> indicator of X11's ability to meet future demands and whether it stays 
> the graphics infrastructure of choice for linux. [And similar applies 
> to gtk.]

Not a problem, the OpenGL hack of X11 already is available. :) Check

http://xwin.org/article.php?story=20030416022515290
http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~unk6/transluxent/

Note that they only support a constant alpha channel throughout each 
window, but the author does seem interested in changing that by 
designing a suitable protocol extension. There is also an X nested 
server which supports translucent windows written in Java, can't recall 
the URL or the feature list at the moment. Either way, using a prototype 
X servers as a testbed for a true alpha gtk does seem like a quite 
feasible option.

Furthermore, translucent windows seem to be on the roadmap for the 
XFree86 5.0. See the 10th entry at

http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2003-March/000004.html

   Miro