2 window questions

Hi!

How to change the transparency of a window?
and
How to make a window stay allways on top?

thanx for any help.

Here's some code from Visual C++ 6.0 that works:

Code:

---

BOOL CFullScrDlgDlg::OnInitDialog()
{
    CDialog::OnInitDialog();

    //...

    int cx, cy;
    HDC dc = ::GetDC(NULL);
    cx = GetDeviceCaps(dc,HORZRES) +
        GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXBORDER);
    cy = GetDeviceCaps(dc,VERTRES) +
        GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYBORDER);
    ::ReleaseDC(0,dc);

    // Remove caption and border
    SetWindowLong(m_hWnd, GWL_STYLE,
        GetWindowLong(m_hWnd, GWL_STYLE) &
    (~(WS_CAPTION | WS_BORDER)));

    // Put window on top and expand it to fill screen
    ::SetWindowPos(m_hWnd, HWND_TOPMOST,
        -(GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXBORDER)+1),
        -(GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYBORDER)+1),
        cx+1,cy+1, SWP_NOZORDER);

    //...

    return TRUE;
}

---

This removes the window border (makes it immovable) and expands to fill up the entire screen. Hope this might help you.

simguy, That is certainly not what he's looking for.

To change the transparency of the window, it must have WS_EX_LAYERED extended style. You can add this style to to your CreateWindowEx's first parameter or you could do this:

Code:

---

SetWindowLong(hwnd,GWL_EXSTYLE,GetWindowLong(hwnd,GWL_EXSTYLE)|WS_EX_LAYERED);

---

Now you can change it's transparency using SetLayeredWindowAttributes:

Code:

---

SetLayeredWindowAttributes(hwnd,0,150,LWA_ALPHA);

---

150 is the transparency, which may be anything from 0 (totally transparent) to 255 (opaque).

There are multiple ways to make your window stay on top. You can use the window extended style WS_EX_TOPMOST or you can do it with:

Code:

---

SetWindowPos(hwnd,HWND_TOPMOST,0,0,0,0,SWP_NOZORDER|SWP_NOSIZE|SWP_NOMOVE);

---

Thx max for the examples and thx anyways simguy for the post.
However, my compiler doesn't recognize SetLayeredWindowAttributes() function or WS_EX_LAYERED style - must be my rather old sdk (2003). Is there another way to do it by any chance?

You can replace WS_EX_LAYERED with 0x80000 and you can import SetLayeredWindowAttributes something like this:

Code:

---

//at the beginning of the file...
typedef DWORD (WINAPI *PSLWA)(HWND, DWORD, BYTE, DWORD);
PSLWA SetLayeredWindowAttributes;
//in WinMain, before creating the window
HMODULE hDLL = LoadLibrary ("user32");
SetLayeredWindowAttributes=(PSLWA)GetProcAddress(hDLL,"SetLayeredWindowAttributes");

---

And then you should be able to use SetLayeredWindowAttributes(). I am not sure if it works, I can't test it at the moment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geek@02

However, my compiler doesn't recognize SetLayeredWindowAttributes() function or WS_EX_LAYERED style - must be my rather old sdk (2003)

---

Your should update your psdk to a more recent version but that isn't the issue here. Note that SetLayeredWindowAttributes requires a minimum operating system of windows 2000 so, you must define _WIN32_WINNT to a suitable value in order for code which uses it to compile - see Using the Windows Headers for details.

The approach described by maxorator gives an opportunity, with suitable checks, for the program using such code to sidestep the absence of SetLayeredWindowAttributes in user32.dll on pre-win2k systems.