Transparent Background for Radio Button?

[Scott Wolfington]

Does anyone know how to make the background of a radio button transparent? I need to put a radio button on a textured background but I don't want the rectangle to show up around the actual button. Thanks in advance!

Scott

[Chris Boss]

Scott;

You need to use the %WS_EX_TRANSPARENT extended style for the radio buttons.

You need to use CreateWindowEX (API) rather than just CreateWindow, to use an extended style.

DDT supports extended styles as well.

Since you are an XXXXX (Dreaded E word to some) user, you can use EZ_ControlEX just like CreateWindowEx to do the same.

As far as I know, the %WS_EX_TRANSPARENT extended style can be used with most controls. If I am wrong about this, maybe someone who does know can comment on this.


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[Eric Pearson]

%WS_EX_TRANSPARENT is not listed in the PB/DLL Help File as a valid style for CONTROL ADD OPTION, so you'll probably have to use CONTROL ADD "classname" to create it "manually".

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[Semen Matusovski]

Eric --
I tried
Control Add "Button", hDlg, %ID_Button, "Testbutton", 10, 70, 80, 15, _
%WS_VISIBLE Or %WS_CHILD Or %BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON, %WS_EX_TRANSPARENT

No success. So, let's wait Chris' definition of styles.

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[Eric Pearson]

Actually I spoke too soon. Add this case to your sample program...

                Case 1
                    SetBkColor CbWparam, &H80C0FF
                    Function = BrushLtBr

...after the Case %ID_Label1 block, and you'll get the desired results. But it does not depend on WS_EX_TRANSPARENT. You can eliminate that.

-- Eric

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[This message has been edited by Eric Pearson (edited March 09, 2000).]

[E B Knoppert]

What about a null brush?

WM_SETCOLOR or the 'WM_colorstatic's' etc..

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[Semen Matusovski]

Eric --
Nice, very simple solution
So, I post final variant

#Compile Exe
#Register None

#Include "Win32Api.Inc"

%ID_Label1 =  101
%ID_Label2 =  102
%ID_Text1 = 201
%ID_Button = 301

Global hDlg&

CallBack Function hDlg_CB()
   Dim BrushLtBr As Static Long, BrushWhite As Static Long, BrushBlue As Static Long

   Select Case CbMsg
      Case %WM_INITDIALOG
         Local Lb As LOGBRUSH
         Lb.lbStyle = %BS_SOLID
         Lb.lbColor = &H80C0FF: BrushLtBr = CreateBrushIndirect(Lb)
         Lb.lbColor = %White  : BrushWhite = CreateBrushIndirect(Lb)
         Lb.lbColor = %Blue   : BrushBlue = CreateBrushIndirect(Lb)
         Function = %TRUE

      Case %WM_DESTROY
         DeleteObject BrushLtBr
         DeleteObject BrushWhite
         DeleteObject BrushBlue

      Case %WM_CTLCOLORDLG ' Return the handle of the dialog background brush.
         Function = BrushLtBr

      Case %WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC, %WM_CTLCOLOREDIT
         Select Case GetDlgCtrlId(CbLparam)
            Case %ID_Text1
               SetTextColor CbWparam, %Blue
               SetBkColor CbWparam, %White
               Function = BrushWhite

            Case %ID_Label1
               SetBkMode CbWparam, %TRANSPARENT
               SetTextColor CbWparam, &H80
               Function = BrushLtBr
            Case %ID_Label2
               SetTextColor CbWparam, %White
               SetBkColor CbWparam, %Blue
               Function = BrushBlue
            Case %ID_BUTTON
               SetBkColor CbWparam, &H80C0FF
               SetTextColor CbWparam, %Blue
               Function = BrushLtBr
            End Select
   End Select
End Function

Function PbMain ()
  Dialog New 0 ,"Test",0,0, 105, 90, %DS_CENTER Or %WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW To hDlg
  Control Add Label, hDlg, %ID_Label1, "Very important", 10, 5, 80, 10, %SS_RIGHT
  Control Add TextBox, hDlg, %ID_Text1,"1. Not nice" + $CRLF + "2. Colors, fonts" + $CRLF + "3. Pardon", 9, 35, 82, 30, %ES_WANTRETURN Or %ES_MULTILINE Or %ES_READONLY, %WS_EX_CLIENTEDGE
  Control Add Option, hDlg, %ID_Button, "Testbutton", 10, 70, 80, 15
  Dialog Show Modal hDlg, Call hDlg_CB

End Function

[This message has been edited by Semen Matusovski (edited March 10, 2000).]

[Jules Marchildon]

I looked up several examples and they all use a hollow brush, same as null brush for any control on a dialog to allow any type
of back ground to bleed thru.(in the case you have a bitmap for a background you need to do it this way for some controls otherwise controls like lables and radio buttons would look silly on a bitmap background)


Regards, Jules

[This message has been edited by Jules Marchildon (edited March 09, 2000).]

[Lance Edmonds]

A problem with using a hollow/null brush with static (LABEL) controls occurs if you want to change the text at runtime - the control does not repaint correctly - the solution in this instance is to kill the control and recreate it with the new text. DDT makes this little chore very easy however.


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Patrice Terrier]

If you want to achieve the ultimate transparency effect that
will work on any background, you should handle all the paint
process yourself, building a black and white XOR mask on the fly.
It is how things are done within the "WinLIFT Skin Engine".

For small surface you can also achieve nice translucency effect
"a la Win2K" mixing pixels together, using this:

FUNCTION GetBValue?(BYVAL nColor&) EXPORT
  DIM F AS INTEGER
  ! mov AL, Byte Ptr nColor&[2]
  ! xor AH, AH
  ! mov F, AX
  FUNCTION = CBYT(F)
END FUNCTION

FUNCTION GetGValue?(BYVAL nColor&) EXPORT
  DIM F AS INTEGER
  ! mov AL, Byte Ptr nColor&[1]
  ! xor AH, AH
  ! mov F, AX
  FUNCTION = CBYT(F)
END FUNCTION

FUNCTION GetRValue?(BYVAL nColor&) EXPORT
  DIM F AS INTEGER
  ! mov AL, Byte Ptr nColor&[0]
  ! xor AH, AH
  ! mov F, AX
  FUNCTION = CBYT(F)
END FUNCTION

' Compute the resulting RGB for the translucid pixel
FUNCTION skTransRGB&(BYVAL hDC1&, BYVAL x1&, BYVAL y1&, BYVAL hDC2&, BYVAL x2&, BYVAL y2&, BYVAL Percent&) EXPORT
    
  ' Get the color of the first picture and extract the r&,g&,b& values
    Colr1& = GetPixel(hDC1&, x1&, y1&)
    r1& = GetRValue(Colr1&)
    b1& = GetBValue(Colr1&)
    g1& = GetGValue(Colr1&)
       
  ' Get the color of the second picture and extract the r&,g&,b& values
    Colr2& = GetPixel(hDC2&, x2&, y2&)
    r2& = GetRValue(Colr2&)
    b2& = GetBValue(Colr2&)
    g2& = GetGValue(Colr2&)

  ' Mix the colors based on the specified percent& to create a new color
  ' that's a perfect combination of the previous two
    r& = (((100 - percent&) * r1&) + (percent& * r2&)) \ 100
    g& = (((100 - percent&) * g1&) + (percent& * g2&)) \ 100
    b& = (((100 - percent&) * b1&) + (percent& * b2&)) \ 100
    
    FUNCTION = RGB(r&, g&, b&)
        
END FUNCTION

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Patrice Terrier
mailto[email protected][email protected]</A>

[This message has been edited by Patrice Terrier (edited March 10, 2000).]

[Chris Boss]

Scott;

I did some research with the MSDN CD and it turns out that the %WS_EX_TRANSPARENT style isn't strongly recommended. I did some testing and it seems the standard windows controls "don't" process this style (except for the Groupbox (Frame) control).

The generic Window created with your own class using CreateWindowEx does though !

The MS docs seem to imply the transparent style was added for such things as "creating hotspots" and for transparent windows to be used over controls (in a Dialog Editor) so you can display "other" things (like those corner blocks (sizing grips) on a selected control in a Dialog editor).

The MS docs basically say that the transparent window style feature is "not fully" implimented in Windows, for example don't try to move a transparent window around, since it will not "repaint" correctly. I found this out in XXXXX (Dreaded E word) when I used the style with the groupbox control and they were moved around in my Visual Designer. I had to do some special processing to get it to repaint correctly.



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[Eric Pearson]

Jules --

> in the case you have a bitmap for a background

It isn't necessary to use a hollow brush for that, because Windows handles that automatically in most cases. If you supply the handle to the "bitmap brush" (instead of a solid brush) Windows will automatically use the appropriate section of the bitmap, depending on where it is being displayed, instead of always using the top-left corner section of the bitmap as you might expect.

-- Eric


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[Jules Marchildon]

Eric, thank you for taking the time to explain these details. I have read most of your replies
in all the forums and I just want to say I appreciate all the help (and your humor) you have given to all of us.

Have a great weekend!
Regards, Jules