"Transparency" (or variable translucense) may be the biggest oppertunity we will have in the near future (providing we have the time and funding) to play with it:-)

We don't have rotation (with perspectives) yet - but with transparency we can achieve multilayered affects. It would be cool if transparency was just a bit more discrete - we only have it with top level forms and (some) controls. It would be neat for the form to be translucent and input values more opaque (but not completely).

Focused controls, as you noted, "covered" the background. Why input controls don't have a "truley" transparent background is an interesting question. For now, we will have to look at layout geometry and background schemes to work around it.

It would be nice if OCX had transparent backgrounds (see the form underneath it!), or at least a kernel function to get the affect.

It sounds like we're both toying with some similar ideas. I am working on a "button" idea with transparent containers inside transparent containers, floating over a form. It should be able to work with any "background" scheme.

The Z-Order is also a neccessary property for addressing overlays. One thing i am not taking serious advantange of is "allowing" the user to arrange and size [some] the controls on the form. Modeling transparent overlays, means addressing the ZOrder and position properties.

It would be nice to see what you've done. I will flash mine when I get it presentable.


>Re: controls with transparency
>
>An interface idea I've been experimenting with is to build floating status indicators based on a transparent container with Zorder(0) with lots of images/shapes/labels displaying critical information. This works great except when this container is displayed over an input control that has focus.
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>VFP appears to do an automatic Zorder(0) to the control that has focus so it pops up over this transparent container. This behavior results in an ugly and unprofessional appearance.
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>One solution might be to place a transparent form or toolbar over this type of transparent container to prevent the control with focus from bleeding through the interface. There are Windows API calls to make a form transparent but I have not yet experiemented with these calls in this context.
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>Perhaps my experience/experiments might give you guys some ideas.
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>BTW: Great thread!
>
>Malcolm