Preserved Topic: here's one for ya Doc... (Page 1 of 1)

I'm wanting to design a simple menu interface, say a vertical rectangle that is a div with a somewhat transparent background. I've seen similiar ones on people's dHTML pop-ups and I'm curious - what is the best way to accomplish this. Should I create a two color gif alternating gray and white with white set to transparent? Is there a dHTML transparency effect (don't they only work in IE5?). Or is there a better method to creating this effect?<P>------------------
<p>[This message has been edited by eedn (edited 17-03-2000).]

Well, in reply to my own topic I've tried a 1x1 pixel checkerboard pattern with any color and white (being transparent and it seems to work pretty well. Any other suggestions?<P>------------------

Well, I've done a few of the one pixel on/one pixel off transparency things for the web, it's actually in one of the handson tutorials, advanced transparency, something like that. The 'real' transparency you've seen around only works in IE as far as I know, that's the main reason I havn't been using it myself. Check out an e-commerce site here in Sweden, www.jc.se , it's a bit overdone to actually sell products, but cool anyway! :-)<P>I'll look into that "opacity" setting, which is done wityh style sheets.
<P>------------------
----- Doctor Thaddeus Ozone --------- "Specialization is for insects"---
  --- OZONE pages .................................. http://www.ozones.com/
    - Hands-On Tutorials ............ http://www.ozones.com/handson/

Are you guys talking about partial transparency? Can that be done in web browsers?

Yah, partial transparency, true alpha channel stuff, I've seen it done. It certainly doesn't work in Netscape, maybe only in IE5, which is mainly why I haven't done anything with it yet.<P><P>------------------
----- Doctor Thaddeus Ozone --------- "Specialization is for insects"---
  --- OZONE pages .................................. http://www.ozones.com/
    - Hands-On Tutorials ............ http://www.ozones.com/handson/

Wow, I can't wait until that's more widely supported.<P>How do you do it? PNG files?

Nah, PNG files aren't really supported anywhere, it's a shame. To be honest, I never really saw how they hoped to implement that format so widely, when so few browsers and graphic apps handled it. Opacity should be an IE5 style setting, I just can't check it out on my Mac, feh...
<P>------------------
----- Doctor Thaddeus Ozone --------- "Specialization is for insects"---
  --- OZONE pages .................................. http://www.ozones.com/
    - Hands-On Tutorials ............ http://www.ozones.com/handson/

This is off-topic, but what does "feh" mean? I saw it somewhere else, and can't figure it out. 8^)

Yeah, I've decided to go with the checkerbaord pattern. I used it as the background image in a div with several colors and it looks good over top of images behind it in the window. Pretty nifty effect really. Doc, I really like your use of it on the index page over the orange globe. That dirty, non-uniform pattern gives it a cool look. Did you use the same method with just a different pattern?<P>------------------
<p>[This message has been edited by eedn (edited 18-03-2000).]

Actually, that's a fake-out, it's really just a solid jpeg lined up to make it *look* transparent. Same image, just drakened, with a dirty wind filter and some pixelization thrown on it.
<P>------------------
----- Doctor Thaddeus Ozone --------- "Specialization is for insects"---
  --- OZONE pages .................................. http://www.ozones.com/
    - Hands-On Tutorials ............ http://www.ozones.com/handson/

The only problem with the checkerboard pattern is that you can't put one on top of another... that's life, i guess.

WOW - take a look at some of the things Microsoft IE can do with style sheets! This is insane!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/c-frame.htm#/workshop/author/default.asp <P>click on "Filters and transitions" in the left hand column... there is other stuff around too. This is incredible.

Heh, better wait till I get back to work and my NT box there. Where *is* IE5 for the Macintosh anyway? Hrmph.
<P>------------------
----- Doctor Thaddeus Ozone --------- "Specialization is for insects"---
  --- OZONE pages .................................. http://www.ozones.com/
    - Hands-On Tutorials ............ http://www.ozones.com/handson/

Hey all!<P>A cool example of opacity can be found at:<P> http://www.alex.nl <P>cheers