workaround to make controls in forms semi-translucent

I have an idea for simulating translucency of controls containers, please tellme if it won't work.

The idea is to add the capability of usercontrol objects placed in the forms to has translucency property.

So, if a form has a background image/skin, and is placed on top controls, by example usercontrol1, with something drawed in it like a button, but that button to be translucent, so the background image from the form layer can be seen through the control.

The idea in steps.

with AUTODRAW = TRUE

1) make the button/or usercontrol control invisible. Doing it from inside the usercontrol class CODE, maybe get the control names, and call parent.controlname.visible=false

2) capture/screenshot the client area of the parent form (by giving th function the hWnd of the parent Window).

3) clip and copy the rectangle are where the usercontrol is suppose to be. From the captured image, to the background of the usercontrol (render).

5) add on top of that what is required to draw the control specifiyng that you want translucent pencils.

6) show the control.

slowness maybe? anyone tried? It will work include if the target form to screenshot is out of the screen boundary, partially or totally?.

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....=1#post5278759

You might to take a look at layered windows.