Drawing ofwindow above desktop wallpaper, below icons (win)

beginners
#1

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if there’s a way to set an FBO as a desktop wallpaper (any platform).

is that technically possible?
If so, what sort of performance can I expect in terms of frame rates?

I’m trying to visualize a few ‘live-desktop’ ideas. I’m aiming for ‘sketch/prototype’ level of fidelity. I can fake it with layered images (for icons and other desktop elements) but I was hoping to push it a notch.
Any opinions, links, insights, etc. appreciated!

Thanks.

#2

maybe you could start here https://github.com/jefftimesten/ofxTransparentWindow

#3

Great! thanks, I’ll check it out.

[edit]
So, technically it works perfect, but… I get a bunch of invalid context error messages every frame. Has anyone faced them before?

“Oct 26 22:27:08 basic[1975] : CGContextSetFillColorWithColor: invalid context 0x0. If you want to see the backtrace, please set CG_CONTEXT_SHOW_BACKTRACE environmental variable.
Oct 26 22:27:08 basic[1975] : CGContextSetStrokeColorWithColor: invalid context 0x0. If you want to see the backtrace, please set CG_CONTEXT_SHOW_BACKTRACE environmental variable.
Oct 26 22:27:08 basic[1975] : CGContextGetCompositeOperation: invalid context 0x0. If you want to see the backtrace, please set CG_CONTEXT_SHOW_BACKTRACE environmental variable.
Oct 26 22:27:08 basic[1975] : CGContextSetCompositeOperation: invalid context 0x0. If you want to see the backtrace, please set CG_CONTEXT_SHOW_BACKTRACE environmental variable.
Oct 26 22:27:08 basic[1975] : CGContextFillRects: invalid context 0x0. If you want to see the backtrace, please set CG_CONTEXT_SHOW_BACKTRACE environmental variable.”

#4

in ofxTransparentWindowUtil.mm the 2 lines that are causing messages are:

[[NSColor colorWithDeviceRed:0.0f green:0.0f blue:0.0f alpha:0.0f] set];
NSRectFill([myView bounds]);

commenting both out works fine. I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong by doing that :confused:

#5

Hi!

As I’ve mentioned in the previous post I have the mac version working based on the ofxtransparentwindow sample
I’m now trying to get it working on a Windows10 version in Visual Studio.

So far I have the ability to draw between the desktop wallpaper and the icons. Unfortunately what I can draw is just this:
TextOut(hdc, 10, 10, “hello”, 12);
The hdc I obtain through various FindWindow processes. It’s basically a device context handle *(HDC GetDC)
How would I go about using that area or as the drawing area?

You can see the little hello world sign behind the chrome icon. The blue is my desktop wallpaper and the highlight is the icon being selected.

Oh, and I don’t expect to interact with it on desktop, just receive ‘data’ and be updated accordingly.

#6

so I’m not sure if in this case I should be using ::SetWindowPos or something else :confused: And where I’d use it, Setup, update, draw?

#7

*bump. Anyone?