(mac) transparent windows?

[session]

Ok, yeah. I'm totally new but thats what I'm wondering! :) How to make windows transparent :unsure: I remember seeing it somewhere! :/

[mac15]

WindowShadeX is the utility your after, its availiable from here http://unsanity.com/haxies/wsx/

[mrelusive978]

:ninja: A way to do it all the time? then I could 'Work Through' tasks in the background...like watch a qt movie on the desktop and continue working in the finder but being able to see thru the windows? :ninja:

[Hurmoth]

  mac15 said:

WindowShadeX is the utility your after, its availiable from here http://unsanity.com/haxies/wsx/

Does this slow down the system like the apps that make transparent windows in Windows?

[danbalsh]

  NeoSoft said:

Does this slow down the system like the apps that make transparent windows in Windows?

It all depends on the speed and memory of your Graphics Card, but even on a 32MB card this would be quite workable with a few windows open, but a little too distracting for me :)

For instace this picture has a large Qucktime Movie playing under a transparent terminal at full speed with no slowdown :cool: and i've only got a GeForce2 MX

[Hurmoth]

That's cool! I have a Windows XP Professional (Athlon 64, ATI Radeon 9600 with 256MB of memory) and the computer still seems a little slower with transparent windows. I'm hoping that will be built into the next version ("Longhorn") without having 3rd party apps!

[danbalsh]

Yeah it will, Longhorn has ripped of the QuartzExtreme Desktop Composite,

[aristotle-dude]

  danbalsh said:

Yeah it will, Longhorn has ripped of the QuartzExtreme Desktop Composite,

Yeah just don't tell Paul Thurott that. ;) We would not want to shatter his so called "reality". :p

[Hurmoth]

Ain't that for real. I like Paul's site because it's very informational, but he didn't need to get so mad about what he did. I agree with him that Mac OS X doesn't hold users' hands to get through the OS and I agree that with people who don't know that much, the constant hand holding isn't a bad thing.

[Southern Patriot]

  danbalsh said:

For instace this picture has a large Qucktime Movie playing under a transparent terminal at full speed with no slowdown :cool: and i've only got a GeForce2 MX

Uhhh, you are aware that Terminal can do transparency all by itself, without a third party utility, right? Heck, even on my 400Mhz G3 PowerBook it doesn't slow down anything by setting it to partially transparent.

[Bling3k12]

I'm pretty sure he knows that, seeing as only the colored part of the terminal is transparent and not the whole window.

[session]

  danbalsh said:

It all depends on the speed and memory of your Graphics Card, but even on a 32MB card this would be quite workable with a few windows open, but a little too distracting for me :)

For instace this picture has a large Qucktime Movie playing under a transparent terminal at full speed with no slowdown :cool: and i've only got a GeForce2 MX

so how can i make it transparent like in the screenshot? just by using WindowShadeX?

I've heard of TransLucy. How is it compared with WSX? :blink:

[session]

Ph and btw, I would like it to be a freeware as well :/ :)

[Southern Patriot]

  session? said:

so how can i make it transparent like in the screenshot? just by using WindowShadeX?

I've heard of TransLucy. How is it compared with WSX?:blink:k:

There's actually a setting for this in Terminal's preferences. Go to the Terminal menu, Window Settings, Color. It's at the bottom.

[NeoMayhem]

  NeoSoft said:

Does this slow down the system like the apps that make transparent windows in Windows?

Nope, not at all :p

I really do watch movies behind windows and it works perfectly :p

This is where you can really see how good OS X is, or how bad windows is....

[session]

  NeoMayhem said:

Nope, not at all :p

I really do watch movies behind windows and it works perfectly :p

This is where you can really see how good OS X is, or how bad windows is....

yeah. this week is my first time realizing why people always say 'once you use a mac, you wouldn't wanna use pc every again!' :D

[Elliott]

  session? said:

so how can i make it transparent like in the screenshot? just by using WindowShadeX?

I've heard of TransLucy. How is it compared with WSX?:blink:k:

Well, Terminal has the transparency preference built in. Some other programs do too. For all other windows, WindowShade X is the way to go.

[mrelusive978]

:ninja: I will never install an APE app again. Every time I do, the aped file causes the Finder in 10.3.2 to take 87-98 percent of my CPU. The only way to fix this is to boot in verbose mode and trash all files related to APE. I hate you, Unsanity. I WAS going to buy SS; not anymore. :ninja:

[session]

  mrelusive978 said:

:ninja: I will never install an APE app again. Every time I do, the aped file causes the Finder in 10.3.2 to take 87-98 percent of my CPU. The only way to fix this is to boot in verbose mode and trash all files related to APE. I hate you, Unsanity. I WAS going to buy SS; not anymore. :ninja:

lol

i thought people had no problem using them? :D

[mrelusive978]

:ninja: This happens to me only in 10.3, and it happens every time. APE even hoses a virgin install...at least for me. :ninja:

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

Interesting situation, mrelusive. Have you tried contacting Unsanity about this? Slava is a pretty approachable guy and may have a pretty in-depth solution. Building something like APE isn't exactly child's play. It involves a pretty low-level understanding of the Mac OS X subsystem. There's bound to be issues.