transparant background in a jframe but with window border etc

Question

So i can try and ask my problem but for your sake and my sake i have created a simple image in photoshop to try to tell you what i want to achieve:

I have tried to work with the Opaque stuff in AWTUtilities but it does not seem to work do you guys have any idea how i can achieve this??

I do need the native windows border so i can drag and drop the window and also need the resize function.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

For a transparent/transuculent JFrame see here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/trans_shaped_windows.html which explains translucent Windows in Java.

You need to call setOpacity().

Here is also a small example :

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import static java.awt.GraphicsDevice.WindowTranslucency.*;

public class TranslucentWindowDemo extends JFrame {

    public TranslucentWindowDemo() {
        super("TranslucentWindow");
        setLayout(new GridBagLayout());

        setSize(300, 200);
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        //Add a sample button.
        add(new JButton("I am a Button"));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Determine if the GraphicsDevice supports translucency.
        GraphicsEnvironment ge =
                GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();
        GraphicsDevice gd = ge.getDefaultScreenDevice();

        //If translucent windows aren't supported, exit.
        if (!gd.isWindowTranslucencySupported(TRANSLUCENT)) {
            System.err.println(
                    "Translucency is not supported");
            System.exit(0);
        }

        JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);

        // Create the GUI on the event-dispatching thread
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                TranslucentWindowDemo tw = new TranslucentWindowDemo();

                // Set the window to 55% opaque (45% translucent).
                tw.setOpacity(0.55f);

                // Display the window.
                tw.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }
}