transparent window question

[ckm]

Hi – I am interested in developing an application, where there is a transparent window on top of another normal window. The transparent window should be, like a typical transparent window, look through. But any thing that I draw on top this transparent window should appear as if it is right above the normal window. (as if a glass pane is hanging in the air, without being seen but it is there and things drawn on it are visible). The window messages should not go through this transparent window to the window below it.


Tried using Layered Windows, with WS_EX_TRANSPARENT or WS_EX_LAYERED flags,but window msgs go through it to the window beneath. Tried Form.opacity, form. Transparency etc. but those make even the drawings on the transparent as invisible.


thanks.

[arjonesiii]

I'm not quite certain why you *need* the transparent window. Why not just trap mouse and keyboard events in your main window to prevent them from running code when you don't want them to? Can you explain what you're trying to do?

[ckm]

Here is what I am trying to accomplish :

Consider a top level window that has child windows.
If we try to draw on top of it, then the drawing is clipped by the children. I want user to able to choose, if he wants to draw on top of the children or below this children and then draw accordingly. If user wants to draw on top of the children, then while drawing, he should NOT be able to interact with the child windows. ( I dont want to disable the child windows again)

So in my case, when user wants to draw on top of all the children, I will create this transparent window on top of the current window and show the drawing on this transparent window. When he wants to draw behind the children as usual, this transparent window will be killed.

I would like to keep this transparent module as independently as possible so that, people can just create the object and hook/unhook it in their projects without modifying much of their existing application code.