Drawing on the desktop?

BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Drawing on the desktop?

Retimer(Posted 2008) [#1]
I found winamp rendering visualizations to the desktop pretty damn cool. How would I go about drawing to the desktop in blitzmax?

I was hoping it would be as simple as:

Local g:tgraphics = Desktop().CanvasGraphics() 
setgraphics(g)


but that doesn't work, and attachgraphics in wx doesn't seem to do the trick either.

Anyone suggestions?


Brucey(Posted 2008) [#2]
I found winamp rendering visualizations to the desktop pretty damn cool

I imagine it's more like a transparent window.


GfK(Posted 2008) [#3]
What Brucey said.

What would happen if you drew all over your user's desktop then your program crashed? ;) I guess drawing directly onto the desktop is possible, but you really shouldn't.


Retimer(Posted 2008) [#4]
It actually draws behind the icons so if it's using transparency, it's doing it pretty damn efficiently :P

I suppose it 'might' be possible it's creating and setting an image for every frame, however even as slow as the visualization is, I can't see the putt-putt computer i'm on right now performing a process like that as quick as it is.

I'll look around the wx forums, maybe they have done something similar.


What would happen if you drew all over your user's desktop then your program crashed? ;)



To be honest it's just something I want to play with personally on my non existant spare time. No plans to use it in any projects or anything.


Perturbatio(Posted 2008) [#5]
You might be able to glean some info from the source of this:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/drempels/


Yahfree(Posted 2008) [#6]
Behind the desktop, I don't know... But there are some effects like splash screens, and other things.. Like the MS paperclip guy that comes out when you open MS word or something.