ARGB windows on Windows?

[marcel]

OK, ok, it can be done, but it is not easy.
Take a look at what this guy did: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems...kingDialog.asp.

It offers real time backdrop composition, although it keeps the processor at 100%.

ask me, how the Yahoo Widget Engine does the ARGB-Widgets.... They can use control-elements and it runs on windows xp/2000....

They probably built an entire framework on top of the Windows composition/translucency API.
Anyway, in the example above, there are a few non-transparent controls.
They did by using an opaque area as background for the controls.
From what I have seen in the code even the control are stored in a backbuffer and painted on the image passed to UpdateLayeredWindow.

Regards