Version 10 of Frame Background Image

TIP#262 proposes that frames should have an option for setting a background image. This Page was started so some graphical examples of frames with backround images could be displayed along with a discussion of the proposed change.

ET The TIP#262 can be found here http://tip.tcl.tk/262.html

After this was published, it became apparent that nested frames might present a problem. I think that having a -transparent option for frames might enhance this. Below is a screenshot of 2 sets of nested frames with buttons, where the upper set is how they would look without images and without the ability to set a frame transparent. The bottom half shows how this could look with a background image and a frame (enclosing the 3 buttons) that has been set to be transparent. Since this is not yet implemented, the below image is merely my photoshop'd version of what it might look like.

Note that the image has been tiled. It was created in photoshop, from a pattern, and then repeated as needed to fill the frame. This would allow one to create small pattern files that could also be inlined as code without being thousands of lines of text. The tile option would let one resize the window and as many repititions of the pattern as needed would be rendered to fill the new frame size.

To implement this using the tip, (and an option -transparent not yet included in the tip) should be like so:

 Frame11 configure -backgroundimage $apattern -tile 1 
 Frame8  configure -transparent 1 -bd 0

which would take an image, tile it (repeat it) as needed to fill the frame, and then make Frame8 transparent so the buttons appear to hover over the background.

Note: Frame11 and Frame8 are command aliases to frames. I use Visual Tcl for this which generates command aliases to each widget that can then be used to configure the widget.

Frame8 was created inside Frame11 to organize the layout of the 3 buttons using the pack manager. In order to be completely transparent, the border width would need to be 0. If not 0, then it would draw a frame, based on style, as before, but the interior of the frame would still be transparent. I haven't completely thought this out yet, however.

MG (Excuse the rambling, just woke up) If it's possible to add a -transparent option like that for frames, why not go a step further: add a transparent color which all widgets can accept as their -background color. I assume that if code is added so that frames could be transparent, it wouldn't take much to apply it to other widgets. (Of course, I could be totally wrong, so if anyone who actually knows could correct me...)

One thing I noticed in your images, btw: Frame5 (the non-transparent counterpart of Frame8) has a raised relief, with a fairly heavy border, but Frame8 doesn't. Would the borders still show up for transparent frames? (Since it's not difficult to turn the borders off when you don't want them, that would seem to make more sense, to me...)

Oh, and another thought: although the TIP doesn't mention it, could/would these options be added to [toplevel] widgets as well as frames? That would probably be equally useful.