Re: Is Alpha Channel support in next release plan?

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 03:49, Christof Petig wrote:
> I am somewhat irritated by the absense of core developers in this thread.
> 
> Is translucency considered a core feature or a non interesting niche 
> candy? Or was this discussed many times ago? (I'm new to _this_ list)
>
> (I somewhat remember translucency mentioned on the roadmap for gtk 3.0)

Basically, 

 A) Despite claims to the contrary, windows with alpha transparency
    is not a feature of X currently; it's also not really a 
    feature of current versions of Win32 in any general form.
    (Longhorn probably will have it.) These are our primary 
    platforms. The only current GDK target with alpha-transparent
    windows is DirectFB, and that's not even integrated into
    the GTK+ distribution.
 
 B) Some limited hacks are possible on X, and, I believe, also
    on Win32, but emphasize both "limited" and "hacks"

 C) Given infinite time, I might try to dust off my fade-in menus
    and tooltips hack patch and integrate it properly into GDK, but
    my time is very far from infinite these days. I wouldn't be
    at all suprised if X *does* have transparent windows before 
    it hits the top of my TODO pile.
    
 D) Once our primary platforms have support for windows with alpha
    transparency, I'm sure we'll support it into GDK.

It's not that translucency isn't considered interesting, but
addressing it in GTK+ when it's not in the windowing system isn't
particularly interesting, or, for that matter, feasible.

Regards,
					Owen