Re: [rox-devel] Transparent icon drags

[Ewan M. M. <ec...@yo...>]

On Fri, 21 Jul 2000, Garrett C wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jul 2000, Thomas Leonard wrote:
> > On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Garrett C wrote:
> > 
> > > > And how about transparent icons when dragging, like under RISC OS?
 
> But what sort of things are likely to change when you're dragging an
> icon? You can't move other stuff around, and you're unlikely to want to
> drop it onto a terminal that is displaying rolling output from a
> program.  You are usually going to be dropping the icon on a static object
> - a filer, or pinboard for example.  The problem with the transparent
> eterms is due to things being able to be moved around or updated whilst
> they are still there.  Sure, you may need to drag the icon over an
> animation or something, but most of the time it would look fine.

I think you might be underestimating the amount of animated stuff that can
be around; scrolling terminals, clocks, volume meters, progress bars... 
There's a lot that could change underneath an icon as you drag it about; 
it isn't just the target area that matters but the path you take too. That
and I tend to find that things that are fine most of the time are really
annoying on the occasions that they don't work.
If you were going to use this approach when would you do the screen grab?
If you do it at the beginning of the drag and don't update it then it
would easily get out of date; if you keep doing it it would be a huge
processing overhead.

> > The best approximation we can do is to use a stipple pattern over the mask
> > to get a poor sort of 50% transparency (like NewerLook does). This could
> > work, but it won't look so good. Make it an option?
> That does sound like a good idea, actually. And it would look pretty good
> on my screen res (1600x1280).

That kind of thing can give wierd aliasing effects on some icons, but it
can't hurt as an option. Alternativly I seem to remember a little program
on the acorn that flashed dragged icons on and off very rapidly - ie 100%
transparent, then 0% transparent -> average of 50%. If you've got a
refresh rate to match that resolution it would work for you at least :-) 

BTW, with regard to CVS snapshots - yes please; my PC doesn't have an
internet connection and the university computers don't have CVS.


Ewan