Transparent Console

Well, it's not the first time I've used that trick - the first few times it looked more like your code than my current code - it's called "experience"... ;-)

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Mats

Experience in Bradszy's vocab = "Something I don't have"
:)

Anyway, how do you recommend I get through this... Problem?
It seemed so simple until these cryptic error's popped up.

The only other thing I can think of is to try it with a real window and not a console window.

Yeah I could do that, and you know what? Maybe it would work.
But I've never made a real window in my life apart from in VB... And I'm really not aiming for a real window anyways... :(

EDIT: Anybody still here?

Perhaps it might be better to use a real window. If you can simply capture the in/out text of a command window and put it in a buffer to do something else with it (like put it in a window that supports transparent bkg/custom bkg images), that would be uber cool for a windows machine.

I actually tried this once, wasn't able to do it in windows, and when I switched to linux, I found it more within my grasp, but then what was the point? (Gnome terminal already supports these features!).

Good luck though.

I'm actually trying to do this in C++, for the fact that you don't need cmd.exe or a .bat file to open to execute a command, you can use

Quote:

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system("...");

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.. In VB6, I could do ALL of the ........ I wanted, transparency, images, animations, audio, really really easily, but I have to open a .bat file or cmd.exe for the commands to execute, which I really don't want to do.
Plus, ive never made a 'real' window in c++ in my life.
In my life.
:(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bradszy

I'm actually trying to do this in C++, for the fact that you don't need cmd.exe or a .bat file to open to execute a command, you can use .. In VB6, I could do ALL of the ........ I wanted, transparency, images, animations, audio, really really easily, but I have to open a .bat file or cmd.exe for the commands to execute, which I really don't want to do.
Plus, ive never made a 'real' window in c++ in my life.
In my life.
:(

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i'm not sure why you think system() calls are a better alternative...

They get the job done, cleanly.

Quote:

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They get the job done, cleanly

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Well, unfortunately windows programming in C++ is not the "cleanest" way to... -program windows. I would suggest VB or something else. I'm not so experienced with windows programming, and I remember dealing with the C++Win32 API was always a real pain (and certainly not clean). So to justify using C++ to use system() by saying it produces "cleaner" code for Windows Programming is something I simply can't agree with.

Ok, let me re-phrase.

"It gets the job done."

But still, i'd really, REALLY rather a fix or workaround for this..

Quote:

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Perhaps it might be better to use a real window. If you can simply capture the in/out text of a command window and put it in a buffer to do something else with it (like put it in a window that supports transparent bkg/custom bkg images), that would be uber cool for a windows machine.

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I offered one.

As long as you are using console apps that don't use direct screen access, and you don't need user input to run the application, it should be nice to popen("cmd.exe ...."), and then read the resulting file.

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Mats

Just a thought but if your aiming for windows, and windows only then try C#(C-sharp). It is Microsoft's abomination of C++ in my opinion. Though it does work, it is a lot slower than C++.

Why do people take a perfectly legible terminal window and make it illegible by compositing it with whatever random garbage happens to be underneath? Do you LIKE migraine headaches?

Because they like to see the desktop and because it's cool?