transparent backgound on screen

[drp2thehill]

Is it possible to have a transparent background on a screen similar to a watermark, etc.?

[Scott Klement]

Hiya Phillip,

I'm not 100% sure that I understand what you're asking for.

Rich Displays already use a transparent background, so if you put them on top of something, you'll see what is behind them... So, for example, if you modified your "start.html" to show a blue background, the widgets, etc that PUI displays would appear on top of that background. Of course, if you're putting something like a panel widget on the display, the panel won't be transparent.. but you could remove the panel, of course. (Panels don't really do anything, they just provide a background of sorts.)

I'm guessing that you also want to put an image or text in the background, because you mention a watermark. With CSS, it should be pretty easy to add an image in the background. Certain types of images (PNG, GIF) can have a "transparency" set. Also, CSS supports a property called "opacity" that can make stuff like text be less solid (allowing you to see through it.)

But I'm not 100% sure why the background should be transparent, here. Normally, a PUI screen is drawn on top of a blank page. So putting a transparent background would allow you to see through the background to see the blank page beyond it...? Doesn't make a lot of sense to make something transparent if the background behind it is blank -- you may as well use a solid background in that case. So, what is behind it that you want to display? Can you explain?

[drp2thehill]

Scott,

I've created exactly what you said. A modified a pic into a .gif with some transparency.
I've put it on the PUI page and done a 'send to back'. It seems to work well except that
when I work on other elements in the 'front', the specifications for length, height, top, bottom
are blank. Can you help shed some light on this? Thanks

[drp2thehill]

Scott,
In addition, I discovered when I click on the other elements, the settings for that element display for a split second then dissappear.

[Scott Klement]

Just to make sure I understand... you are just putting an image widget into your display file and doing "Send to back". So, you're not using CSS to apply this as a background image or anything fancy like that, right?

I don't know why you'd lose your height/left/top, etc properties. Is it possible that you have accidentally selected more than one widget at a time? Maybe you have the image as well as another widget both selected? That would cause something like this.

[emhill]

Make sure the elements you are clicking on are not "locked". If they are locked when you click on them the properties comes up for just a second then disappears. I've found you will need to right click on locked elements and the properties will stay visible.

Don't know if that is what you are looking for or not but just thought I'd throw it out there!!! :-)

[drp2thehill]

I had them all locked, but unlocking redisplayed the setting for the elements. Thanks emhill