Windowless Applications?

[Person]

This isn't really a question on how to do something in Löve but for if the idea is even possible in regular programming. If it does so happen to be possible in Löve then I will forever be in love with Löve!

Is it possible to create an application or game that does not need a window? As in the ugly and confining square with a default black background and some OS specific buttons on top? Could I simply just draw my graphics onto a fully transparent 'window'?

It would rock if we could create cool little apps that don't need windows. Digital pets, magnifying glasses, plat-formers, ect. It doesn't really matter if the window exists or not, just if the end user perceives that a window exists...

example for those who didn't understand due to my horrifically inelegant explanation...
http://www.chameleonflash.com/images/sc ... arency.jpg

[Jasoco]

No, unfortunately.

For something like that, you're better to program a Konfabulator Widget, or a Dashboard Widget, or a Windows Sidebar Gadget, or a Google Desktop Gadget, or a clever Bowlet in Bowtie, or....

Basically, there are many other alternative methods to creating this kind of program. (Konfabulator or Google Desktop would be the two cross-platform options.) LÖVE is a game platform. I don't think a windowed "pet" would be so bad. Unless you had planned on making it run along the top of the Windows taskbar or something. In that case, just use one of the above options.

[Robin]

I remember with Rapid-Q (Which is basically BASIC, now pretty much obsolete, with no new version since 2000), it was possible to create forms (windows) which used an image mask for the shape, so you could have windows with any shape (or shapes) one could imagine. It only supported transparency, though: it could not use translucency.

[Jasoco]

Translucency would be nice and I would support it if the developers wanted to put it in. I mean all the modern OS' pretty much make so much use of it these days. OS X, Windows all the way back to XP, Linux for a long time too. So it's not like it'd be an OS specific thing. It's all dependent on if the devs think it is needed.

[Pliskin09]

where on windows for example is transparency used...?

[Jasoco]

where on windows for example is transparency used...?

Everywhere.

Sidebar Gadgets
The task bar
The windows themselves
The entire OS
The various theming programs and window manager replacements
Reinlender and all its related/similar programs

Same with OS X and Linux. (Most high-end distros and themes)

You can't look at an OS today without seeing some sort of transparent/translucent effect. And each part is an individual window. Widgets/Gadgets are windows with special cutout "masks" allowing for multiple levels of opacity. The Aero interface with the rounded edges and the transparent glass. OS X's Dock, both the 2D and 3D versions. Dock Stacks, especially in Snow Leopard. All the way back to OS X 10.0 when the title bars were transparent.

In fact, the only way you won't see transparency is if you are using an OS prior to 2000. Windows 98, Me, Mac OS 9, a lot of older Linux window managers in the early days/late 90's. And even then, they all had ways of hacking it in if it wasn't available. But then again, if you are using one of those, you are probably not running Löve. Thanks to Apple, transparency is commonplace and synonymous with Operating System GUI these days. Every OS does it now. And I mean real transparency with multiple opacity levels.

Not to mention every OS on every new smart phone and tablet on the market. As well as every video game console, especially the 360 and PS3. (And I'm talking about the dashboard UI's, not the games themselves. Especially the 360 with its new UI and its old Blades system. These consoles can place windows over running games too with transparency and rounded edges.)

Heck... every gosh darn computer made after 2000. It all depends on the video card, and these days even the lowest end integrated graphics card can do it. They don't even make computers anymore that can't do it. Heck, my cheap Net10 cell phone has transparent windows that allow me to see the wallpaper behind them.

100th post!

[Robin]

100th post!

Welcome to the Party!

[Pliskin09]

boo, post < 100 is better

[TechnoCat]

Jasoco is right recommending using a widget library instead of trying to code a Windows program from scratch with no window. I imagine a widget-less gui is fairly undocumented, but I certainly could be wrong. Seems like all keygens are windowless. And keygens always have awesome music.