Transparent Gnome Terminal
 

Hi all

I managed to make my Gnome terminal transparent (Small screenshot here). The thing is, when it's open above any window or the desktop icons, you don't see the contents of that window or the icons, but the wallpaper instead. So it's like an X-ray panel.
Is there any way I can make it transparent in a way that it doesn't hide what's underneath it? Or do I need another terminal emulator for that?

Oh and something else, Gnome 2.10 used to have an "Open Terminal" Option on the right click menu on the desktop. In Gnome 2.12 it's gone. Does anyone know how to get it back?

Thanks

-A

The reason you're still seeing the desktop instead of windows stacked underneat the terminal is because it's not true transparency.

Most all terminals use pseudo-transparency. They apply the wallpaper as a background to the terminal, then shade it according to your configuration. When you move the window around the screen, you see it update the background to coincide with the wallpaper of the desktop, to give it the look of true transparency.

The only WM (window manager) that I know of that uses REAL transparency is Enlightenment 17, and from my limited experience with it, it's LAGGY and unneccesary (transparency, that is).

I'm quite happy with pseudo transparency. True transparency is a hardware level feature, I belive that is why most programs, windows managers, etc, do not use it.

-Jason

I once attempted to install Enlightenment, but failed miserably.. Oh well, if there's no other way then I'll leave it that way. Thanks!

Anyway, if anybody knows a certain terminal emulator that supports true transparency, please let me know.. Thanks again!

-A

I am not sure you will find many apps (at the mo anyway) that support true transparency. True transparency is being sorted out for the future releases of xorg. Once thats sorted, KDE and GNOME can then use it.

Oh ok. Thanks a lot! :)

-A

is there a place to get background images for gnome terminal or any other terminal? i found a script for random term. backgrounds but im not sure what to do with it. its a !bin/bash it says save it to cron but i want to beable to choose the background when i want to use it not auto update with cron.