No transparancy/alpha channel in X

[dirk.dierckx]

all things that need an alpha channel (e.g. a window frame with rounded corners, the icons used for drag and drop, the default theme for gkrellm, etc.) aren't transparent but contain random pixels in those areas of the window

i tried to find some info on the web, but the only thing that i've found about this subject is that it needs the RENDER extension, which is running on my X server

can somebody help me out?

many thanx in advance,
dirk

[Verteron]

XRender only works inside windows, it's what's used to do font antialiasing. There is currently no way to do true alpha channel compositing in X Windows.

You either need to check out alternatives like XDirectFB (not great), wait for Xouvert to get its act together, use a system that fakes it (like QT) or wait until FreeDesktop.org gets their XServer extensions sorted out (don't know when this will be).

[epx]

You can get a working version from there website (via cvs) right now. There was a story about it on slashdot.

[mackstann]

Your problems sound related to the shape extension. That's what lets windows be shapes other than rectangles. As Verteron said, there is no alpha channel in XFree, those pixels are basically just chopped off of the windows by the shape extension.

[Stu L Tissimus]

*trumpet* doo duh doo! Stu to the rescue! Click they eye candy link in my sig. There's an ebuild on the forums, search for it.
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[dirk.dierckx]

... and how can one tell x to load this SHAPE extension?

regards,
dirk

[dmitchell]

From the XF86Config manpage,

[dirk.dierckx]

i don't have access to the system where i've the SHAPE problems right now but i suppose my XF86Config file needs to include the SubSection "extmod" in Section "Module", i'll try it as soon as i'm back home

many thanks for all the help
dirk