How can I make only part of the window transparent? (WIN32)

Question

How can I do, for example, only the rectangle inside the window has an opacity like 50% or something like that, and for this part the effect is WS_EX_TRANSPARENT, so that the mouse clicks go through this?

Answer 1

I don’t think it’s possible to simply set WS_EX_TRANSPARENT, but it can be done using two windows, create a window with a hole using SetWindowRgn , and another transparent window is added inside this hole using the styles WS_EX_LAYERED and WS_EX_TRANSPARENT.

Answer 2

SetLayeredWindowAttributes Win32.

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Answer 3

Take a look at this CodeProject article: Cool, translucent, and uniform dialogs with standard controls for Windows 2000 and later .