❔ Prevent clicks through Transparent Background Form
i made a transparent background form (
BackColor: Gray and TransparentKey: Gray) but i would like to prevent clicks through it. i found some stuff online but i'm not sure how to implement them since i'm a begginner, can you guys help me with that?17 Replies
context, please
sure, i made a color EyeDropper tool for my application, i use a mouse hook to get the position in the screen, it starts when the user clicks in a button in the main form, and when a mouse click happens it gets the position you clicked, gets the color of this position and stops the hook
But there's a problem, if i need to get another app button color i would have to click in this button, so i had the idea to make a transparent window that follows the mouse, you would click on this window instead of clicking in the actual thing, i would show it when the user clicks in the button to pick a color and hide it when a click happens, and i could use this same window to show the color you're hovered at (if you think there's a better solution for this please let me know)
But when you create a transparent window you can click on stuff thought it (example in the image below), i wanted to prevent this.
something like this
here's a better explanation
okay, but like... still no context
what framework is this?
oh, my bad, its .NET
alright
what framework?
the GUI framework is Windows Forms
lovely
so, you're attempting to make an EyeDropper that works for the ENTIRE screen, not just your app?
yeah, actually, i already have the base working
it sounds like you're well on the right track already
that's roughly what the Windows Snipping Tool does, for example
it tosses an overlay over top of what you're trying to screenshot
so, I don't know what the semantics are for this in WinForms, but in WPF, transparency is handled to allow for exactly what you describe
when you're drawing a control or something, you assign a Brush to it
if you assign a Brush with a color of #000000FF I.E. fully transparent, it will "paint" transparent pixels on that control
so, the control is there and intercepts all the mouse input and such, but it's still transparent
however, if you assign the Brush to be
null, then it doesn't paint anything
and a control that doesn't have any painted pixels won't receive input
you want whatever the equivalent mechanism is in WinForms, if anyooh ok
i think i saw something like that, you override the paint of a control, right?
you of course could also just set your window to be...not transparent
make it #000000FE
or more like Snipping Tool
#00000077
You can't blow the chrome away in windows forms iirc
So if you're fine with still seeing the border
Though that may have changed idk
I mean, "don't use WinForms" is definitely the real answer
at least part of it
Was this issue resolved? If so, run
/close - otherwise I will mark this as stale and this post will be archived until there is new activity.