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Lebans Holdings 1999 Ltd. |
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Transparent.zip is a database
containing functions to allow for the conversion of Bitmap, Gif, Jpeg, Enhanced
Metafile and Metafile to an Enhanced Metafile format supporting Transparent
backgrounds.
Bug in A2K under Win98 or NT. The issue is with Access and how it it is rendering the metafile. As someone mentioned you can load the converted files that do not display properly in Access, into other Office apps where they display fine.
If you look closely you will see that Access is grabbing the current display
memory as background for the Image control before it paints the metafile.
That's what you are seeing as background noise in the converted Transparent
images.
In the versions of Access and Win OS's where the Images display normally, the
current display memory of the Form is masked out as the Metafile is rendered.
This is how I am able to achieve transparency with Access.
For some internal Access issue, A2K is not masking the background properly on
Win98 and NT. It works fine on Win2K.
Preliminary experimentation shows that a plain old Metafile, not the Enhanced
Metafiles I am using now, seems to work on all versions of Windows with all
version of Access. I will test further and release a new version.
In the meantime here is a quick fix.
1) Load and convert the desired Image using my Transparent functions. Save the
converted Image to disk as you would normally. DO not worry that the
background contains "garbage".
2) Open Microsoft WOrd. Menu-_Insert->Picture->From File
Browse to your converted Image you previously saved and select it.
3) After the Image appears on the page Click once on the Image to select it.
4) Right click and select Copy from the Popup menu or click on the
ToolBar to select COPY
5) Open an Access Form and Select Paste from the Menu or ToolBar. The Image is
pasted as an unbound OLE frame.
6) On the Access Form-Format menu select Change To->Image control.
7) Change the new converted Image control's Back Style Prop to
Transparent.
You're done!
Version 2.1 **BUG FIX FOR NT and WIN2K** Peter Walker was kind enough to find and fix an OS dependency Bug. Transparent.zip is a database containing functions to allow for the conversion of Bitmap, Gif, Jpeg, Enhanced Metafile and Metafile to an Enhanced Metafile format supporting Transparent backgrounds. NEW - Apr. 24/2000 Display your pictures in a standard Access Image control with a transparent background. This is part of my current project I am working on which is an Animated Gif player for Access. No ActiveX controls or external DLL's. Notes: This function only works on pictures that have "WHITE" as their background color. Many GIF files use the standard system GREY instead. You will have to load any files into a Paint program that do not have white for a background color and make the necessary changes. I spent 10 hours trying to implement a Transparent function to allow the user to select which color they want to appear transparent. The problem here is that in the normal course of events, the program rendering a picture to the screen can obviously grab whatever is currently on the screen to form the basis of a transparency function. Since there is no "Paint" event in Access we rely on the Access to redraw all of the controls. I could not find a method to encode a transparent color in the Metafile other than background white. You would think you could just set the DC's Background color to the chosen Transparency value to form the "mask". Unfortunately I tried this with limited success. I could make any color Transparent except the current background color. The easiest method would be to remap the user's choice for a Transparent color to the background and make it White. But I spent so much time experimenting that I'm going to leave it for now and get back to the Animated Gif player. I'll try to come back some day and finish this properly.
History: Version 2 Now deletes its temporary files as it should have in the first place! File requester now defaults to "*.* Animation Form opens without "Missing table" error.. |
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