skin transparency?

I coulda sworn i was told at some point that RR supported transparency on skin images...anyone have any idea if this is true and how to make it happen? I've tried GIF's, JPEG's (which to my understanding, don't do transparency), and PNG, but the backgrounds just come up black where i want them to be transparent...

my reasoning for this is to revisit my old android skin idea where the background stays still and stuff moves around, like when you switch between home screens... I would use MENU to load my different screens over the background image and use the SHIFT transitions to mimic how android works.

The main background is not transparent, ie you can't see the desktop through the skin.

the empty,off,on,down images can all be skins and have transparency, but the transparent parts will jut show the background image you selected or black if none (I think)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Enforcer

The main background is not transparent, ie you can't see the desktop through the skin.

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Unless you use the CLIP command: CXX, , , ,

From Skin Commands.txt :

Quote:

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/, (C) Clip window Region (Ride Runner Only)
/, x y w h
/, --- --- --- ---
CXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX

The above tag clips the defined region off the window. The region clipped OFF will be completely transparent,
that same region will not catch any mouse click or events and will show be see through for any objects behind it.

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ok because none of my skin image files, even when i load a skin as a menu, show transparency...only black. for instance, menu.skin and menu1.skin have the same graphics except menu.skin is "blank", where menu1.skin has buttons... i took the images for menu1.skin, removed the background, audio control buttons, etc so that all that was left was the main buttons. saved as a PNG w/ transparency, it still comes up black even when i do MENU;menu1.skin instead of LOAD;menu1.skin... using menu it should load menu1 over top of menu...

ideas? I would really hate to have to use a ton of Clip regions since on several screens i rely on dead space for a button as well...

You can create a transparent screen if you rename the empty.png screen by a empty_transparent.png .

Code:

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RideRunner Skin
RRScreen RRGoogleMapsTools_Info
RRGoogleMapsTools_Info_transparent.png,RRGoogleMapsTools_Info_off.png,RRGoogleMapsTools_Info_on.png,RRGoogleMapsTools_Info_down.png
B,146,12,596,116,"ESC",
IDL,10

/EFFECTIN=17

/EFFECTOUT=18

[Labels]
L,141,7,607,125,255,255,255,18,"Arial:BI","=$RRGoogleMapsToolsInfo$","WRAP",,"DS=2,2,0,0,0"

[Indicators]
I,14,19,109,100,"FILE;$SKINPATH$Indicators\$InfoLogo$","All"
/I,14,19,109,100,"FILE;http://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/place_api/icons/restaurant-71.png","All"
 
END

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surprisingly, that worked...unfortunately i'm once again scrapping this idea...

while the transparency does work, everything behind the screen appears frozen, which for me doesn't work because i have labels and indicators behind it (mute indicator, track time, title, etc). Clip will probably work to resolve this issue, but would the objects behind the screen (buttons for instance) still work as normal?

guess I'll give it a try...

I'm probably still scrapping the idea though because you can't do MENU; twice in a row...it actually closes the first menu out and then loads the second menu, to which the shift transitions still show the whole screen moving...not like i was hoping it to do...

oh well, it was worth a try...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sxtnitehawk

surprisingly, that worked...unfortunately i'm once again scrapping this idea...

while the transparency does work, everything behind the screen appears frozen, which for me doesn't work because i have labels and indicators behind it (mute indicator, track time, title, etc). Clip will probably work to resolve this issue, but would the objects behind the screen (buttons for instance) still work as normal?

guess I'll give it a try...

I'm probably still scrapping the idea though because you can't do MENU; twice in a row...it actually closes the first menu out and then loads the second menu, to which the shift transitions still show the whole screen moving...not like i was hoping it to do...

oh well, it was worth a try...

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there is a tool around, elcosmenu, and you can have as many as you want/need, limited to buttons and labels, hope that can do what you are after, thunderstick and pierrot made some more additions to it, give it a try. is what people use to make those garmin osk screens.

the big thing is that the transitions still don't do what I really want...

I suggested to guino a long time ago making it so you can have a static background that doesn't change, then with transparency you could do some pretty trick things with the transitions, but I think he said that required a completely new skinning engine...

Honestly, openMobile can do everything I want and more...but it's by far much harder to code than RR....plus to move to OM i would have to redo EVERYTHING, skin images and all... I'll just live with what I got and be glad it's made it this far...

You can use gimp to make your images transparent....just adjust the opacity for the image and save it. Hope that helps:)

It's been awhile since I coded for transparency, but last time I did it, the background image must be defined otherwise it's just default black.