How can I make for example only a rectangle inside the window have opacity like 50% or something like that and for that part to have the effect of WS_EX_TRANSPARENT so that mouse clicks will go through it?
I do not think it is possible simply by setting WS_EX_TRANSPARENT, but it can be accomplished using two windows, create a window with a hole, using SetWindowRgn, and inside that hole put another transparent window using WS_EX_LAYERED and WS_EX_TRANSPARENT styles.
Take a look at the SetLayeredWindowAttributes Win32 function.
It can be used to set the opacity and transparency of a window.
Take a look at this CodeProject article: Cool, Semi-transparent and Shaped Dialogs with Standard Controls for Windows 2000 and Above.
Related
I am trying to create a Direct3D app that is operating in windowed mode with a title bar and minimize/quit button. However, I'd really like to be able to axe the border around the window.
I am looking to do this because it looks pretty cheesy on dual monitors when the app is filling the primary monitor horizontally (with room to move the app vertically), but its window border overflows onto the secondary screen. I've tried a bunch of combinations of setwindowlong with GWL_STYLE and GWL_EXSTYLE, but can't seem to make headway unless I disable the title bar.
I've seen a bunch of apps that are borderless however they seem to emulate the title bar rather than using the built in one provided by Microsoft.
Thanks for any suggestions.
You can't remove the border and keep the titlebar AFAIK.
You can reimplement the titlebar by using WM_NCHITTEST but you still need to draw it yourself which would not be a bad idea if you want your D3D app to look its best.
Visual Studio, last time I checked, achieves its border with transparent layered windows standing behind the primary one. They are the shadows you see.
I don't like how the native sizing border looks like :
I would like to have something like this fancy purple border instead :
Should I implement my own sizing border manually or should I keep using the WS_THICKFRAME window style and customize it ?
And if I can customize it, I'd like it to be done without nasty hacks too...
You may create a window without border and caption bar by specifying the WS_POPUP flag in the window type flags.
Your handler of the WM_NCHITTEST message you must check which part of your window a certain pixel really belongs to (e.g. resinzing frame) and return the code for that part.
The drawback: You'll have to draw the entire window content (including caption etc.) your own.
I think you should implement your own redraw procedure (for example to draw a purple rectangle at the bottom, and then draw an icon in the corner). If you're wanted to make your window similar to VS2013 window, then you should use WS_POPUP style and then implement your own redraw routine. If you wanted to customize your window's form you can use regions (SetWindowRgn(), CreateRectRgn(), CreateRoundRectRgn(), CreateEllipticRgn(), CreatePolygonRgn(), etc.) Broadly speaking, using WinAPI you can do everything, but are you limited to WinAPI only? It is good idea to use MFC or Windows Forms to make window interface creation much easier.
This is a screenshot of Steam's client window being resized.
Steam's client window has two cool features.
Custom window which is very responsive.
Cool glass resize effect, different from standard windows (Thought it might be a side effect strongly related to 1)
Let's say I wanna create similar window using winapi. How can I do it?
I don't ask about widget-management related stuff, but about technical winapi tricks.
Basically, you can do almost anything with your window. But most of the tricks are to be implemented manually.
What is 'very responsive' I don't know. If you mean that the window has no standart border, it is easy to implement: do not specify WS_BORDER and WS_CAPTION when creating a WS_POPUP window. After that you will have to draw a border and a caption yourself. Handle WM_ERASEBKGND and WM_PAINT messages, draw background, menus, all as usual.
This effect seems to me more like a bug. It happens this way: the window is resized, it gets a WM_SIZE message, processes it, Windows sends a WM_ERASEBKGND message which the window ignores. Thus, the system draws a new shadow around new window frame which is not yet filled with new window image. And here we get this cool glass effect: old image of underlaying windows with a windows aero shadow. You can try to disable windows shadows and look at this effect.
In order to create a custom resizing border, you might find useful these functions: LoadCursor, SetCursor, MoveWindow.
In order to draw your custom borders, you can use standart GDI functions. Also you can create a handful of child windows and delegate drawing to them. This is basics of winapi.
I have a VS2008 C++ application for Windows XP SP3 developed using WTL 8.1. My application contains a tab control that flickers when the application border is resized.
My window hierarchy looks like this:
CFrameWindowImpl CMainFrm
|-CSplitterWindow Splitter
|-CTabView Configuration Tabs
| |-CDialogImpl Configuration View 1
| |-CDialogImpl Configuration View 2
| |-CDialogImpl Configuration View 3
|-CDialogImpl Control View
The solution I'm trying is to make the CFrameWindowImpl derived class use the WS_EX_COMPOSITED style and all windows beneath it use the WS_EX_TRANSPARENT style. Unfortunately, this makes the tab control buttons show as an empty black bar and the controls of any Configuration View to not show at all.
If I remove the WS_EX_COMPOSITED and WS_EX_TRANSPARENT styles, the form displays properly, but the CTabView and everything beneath it flickers horribly when resized.
What do I need to change to eliminate the flicker and draw the controls properly?
Thanks,
PaulH
Edit:
Got it working. I removed all the WS_EX_TRANSPARENT styles per Mark Ransom's suggestion. I put the WS_EX_COMPOSITED style on only the CTabCtrl (contained within the CTabView). Other controls get double-buffering as needed through WTL::CDoubleBufferImpl<>.
A window flickers because it gets erased before it's drawn. To eliminate this you need to disable erasing of the window entirely and use double buffering - draw the window contents into a bitmap, then copy the bitmap to the window. Because the bitmap contains the entire contents including the background, there's no need to erase anymore.
It looks like WS_EX_COMPOSITED will handle the double buffering automatically, but you still probably need to use a NULL background brush and/or handle the WM_ERASEBKGND message.
Whats not mentioned in MSDN is that the Desktop Window Manager - the component that hooks window painting on Windows Vista and 7 to perform the desktop composition necessary to get the aero glass effect - does NOT implement WS_EX_COMPOSITED.
Which means all the work you put into getting this style to work on XP, is doomed to become irrelevent on Vista or later.
The other problem with WS_EX_COMPOSITED - and why it was an optional style and not a default on XP: The double buffering only picks up painting performed during the BeginPaint / EndPaint block of the parent window. Lots of, even standard controls, perform painting outside of their WM_PAINT handlers, and as a result the backbuffer gets only partially painted.
Sadly, the result is, the only way to "eliminate" flicker in native API apps is to try to minimize it: WS_CLIPCHILDREN and WS_CLIPSIBLINGS can help if you dont have overlapping controls - to ensure that each control's area is painted only once. And ensure that the main dialog does not perform any flood filling in WM_ERASEBKGND
It is not, in my experience, possible to use double-buffering for anything that contains child controls (unless they all fully support WM_PRINT, which most do not).
I have tried several methods, but problems always exist. Sometimes the sub-window didn't refresh and sometimes the sub-window will keep blink.
This is a sample project that i have written
http://rapidshare.com/files/283950611/TestProject.7z.html
My method to implement that is:
Put a scroll bar on the top of sub-window, whenever the scroll bar was dragged, the sub-window would be moved as well.
And every dialog is inherited from CDialogBase, All the drawing is done in this class, Drawer.h is a helper for drawing.
Only when the DC that user assigned is dirty, then system will redraw the window, it is used for accelerating the painting.
WS_EX_LAYERED only can be added to with top level window, not sub-window; I've tried to modify the window style from WS_CHILD to WS_OVERLAPPED, and then using layed window, and then clip the visiable area of the window, but, the result is not what I expected.
Anywhere, thank you for your advice...
Have you considered using WS_EX_LAYERED and then using UpdateLayeredWindow. It can get quite complicated but allows for things like per-pixel alpha and eliminates flicker like you are seeing.
Look here:
http://www.nuonsoft.com/blog/2009/05/27/how-to-use-updatelayeredwindow/
for more info.