Question

I was wondering if it would be possible to create a window using SWT that has either a transparent background or no background (i.e., just buttons and texts are shown floating).

I’ve tried using the setBackground() function like:

shell.setBackground(display.getSystemColor(SWT.TRANSPARENT));

but it will just show a window with a black background rather than a transparent one. any way to do this?

Answer 1

See How to Create Translucent and Shaped Windows (Java 7+).

..(SWT) uses the native window scheme, rather than an ugly/custom one. ..

Use Swing with the native PLAF.

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Update 1

Me.

..you want component (button etc.), not Window (or ancestor) transparency?

To which you replied.

not necessarily the component itself, but the ‘area’ in which the component resides in. if you look at the Nested Layout Example above, you see the win 7’s transparent border, then you see the normal gray background. I’d like that gray background to also be transparent.

You can create a window with per-pixel translucency, where each pixel has its own alpha value. With this feature you can, for example, create a window that fades away to nothing by defining a gradient in the alpha values.

And as an aside, that 3rd screenshot is actually the 2nd image ripped directly from the page that is linked in the 1st sentence of my reply (the same page where I got the above quote). Did you follow the link, read the page (look at the screenshots), try the working examples?