Classic Shell: Forum

Hi, i discovered classic shell just from 4 days, and it looks it has all i need, so i jumped into designing an eye candy skin (yes, unneeded but i like eyecandy ), but i cant use transparency effectively, i'm tryng to figure out how the main_opacity=region setting works, it should do exactly what i want (a graphical menu with transparent parts) but it looks like the solid setting. I tried to trick using the fullglass or alphablend and changing the bitmap using various kind of bitmap, tried colouring with red ( #FF0000) the alpha channel (and other colors too..) and setting Main_bitmap_mask=#FF0000, but never achieved my goal. Seems like i cant design a good bitmap, and i cant save the image with alphachannel to use the region setting, because everytime i import it with reshacker i get a floating point error.
Are 32bit Alphachannel image supported in some ways?
Isn't it possible to set an opacity value (Ex: mainbitmap_opacity=[0-255]
I dont know why but cant use bitmasks at all
I'm using Windows8 + TheGimp

PS: I put a screenshot, the pink area is what it looks like (i tried that color instead of alpha channel) and instead i want to be completely transparent
PS2: This is not the finished skin, it's only a part i'm using to learn

Most likely the alpha channel in your bitmap is wrong. It needs to be a 32-bit bmp. I don't know if Gimp does it correctly.

Thanks for fast reply, then which program do you use to have a correct alpha channel 32 bit bmp? (possibly not photoshop it's a bit expensive for my needs XD)

Crap, it was thegimp, i tried a (free) program called pixelformer that make correct bmp, it make the trick!! Thanks, i will post my skin when finished

Gimp will work you just have to click export.... rather than overwrite XXXXXX.bmp
then click compatiblity options, check "Do not write color space information"
then click Advanced options and click the 32 bits radio box that says A8R8G8B8
then click export

this has to be repeated every time gimp is restarted, but not every time it saves (after you first do this you can use the "overwrite xxxxxxx.bmp" button to save again

i did these steps in thegimp and got a 32bit bmp with alpha channel but i already get error when importing from resource hacker, with pixelformer instead i just export the file to bmp and get no errors in reshacker, so i work the files in gimp export in png and then i reopen that in pixelformer to export in bmp.
If anybody got same problem it's a good trick, the other software could also be used for simple editing alone, for those who want to make just small adjustment to some skin and dont want an heavy soft like gimp or photoshop