Re: GTK-xemacs transparency patch
Valdis.Kletnieks(a)vt.edu writes:
The problem is, of course, that if there's "padding"
between the scrollbar
and the window manager borders, the eye tends to think of the scrollbar
as "floating" on top of the background, and it doesn't look right unless
the padding looks consistent with that interpretation (i.e., if there's
a pattern on the background, you expect to see the appropriate pixels
in the padding.
Obviously, I could remove the padding by setting the tinted
copy of the root window as background for the top-most object
too (not just the text-pane), but for some reason I cannot
quite put my finger on, the idea of taking the trouble for
those few pixels makes my flesh creep...
For even more fun, try it with a window manager that has a
"detached"
border that "floats" a few pixels away from the window. This tends to
make a pseudo-transparent window look worse, because it accentuates what
a "real" transparency would show (usually, 'transparent' windows will
merely composite themselves onto a copy of the root window, rather than
actually implement window stacking. So if your window manager border
is making it even MORE obvious that another window is "under" you,
the application window "transparency" looks worse..
Unless you are already *used* to pseudo-transparency, of course.
The thing is, real alpha transparency (or something using
stacking) may look cool in screenshots, but I've found it rather
impossible (or at least, annoying) to work with when I tried
it on my brief encounter with XP, as once you begin to stack
windows with high contrast contents (like text), the contents
of the topmost window become excessively difficult to discern.
True Alpha, in my experience, is something to impress your
friends with, not something to work on. Obviously, YMMV.
See this for an example:
Colleague uses that one. : )
Actually, I tend to switch the borders off for text windows
(xemacs, Eterm), I just needed them on in the picture to
illustrate my point. : )
Actually, the proper hack until we know how to do it *right* would be
to
nail that scrollbar to the side, over-riding whatever padding might
be there.
That's what I'm doing for now, I'll still have to put a generic
(theme-independent) solution in sample.emacs though.