Actual Transparent Window 7.0

Actual Transparent Window allows you to apply transparency to any window. In addition to being visually cool, this effect lets you visualize various windows at the same time, which can help you use your workspace more efficiently.

This program’s usage implies two difficulty levels. Applying the transparency effect could not be made any easier than it is all about using the new button that appears next to the standard window control buttons. By left-clicking on this button, you can toggle on or off the effect for a given window. Right-clicking will automatically display a slider that you can use to adjust the transparency level to exactly the desired percentage. The available levels range from 0% (solid) to 100% (fully transparent). At a different level of difficulty, there is the program configuration, which is available via right-clicking on the corresponding System Tray icon. Setting the multiple options available is not always necessary because the default presets work just fine. However, you can customize your settings by assigning an automatic transparency level for specific applications, configuring hotkeys for the different effects and having the program run automatically at Windows startup.

In general, to use this tool or not is your absolute decision. As for me, I do not see the real advantage of using transparent windows. Instead of increasing my productivity, I usually lose track of what is in the foreground. I only find it useful for running small-windowed applications, such as a media player. It is certainly nice to have WinAmp set to show always on top with a transparent window while I listen to music and write this review at the same time.

v7.0 [Mar 20, 2012]
Changes:
- Configuration window has been revamped.
- Compatibility with Windows 8 Consumer Preview is improved.
- Compatibility with Windows Snipping Tool is improved.
- Compatibility with TechSmith's Snagit is improved.
- Compatibility with GOM Media Player is improved.
- Compatibility with Gyazo is improved.
- The "C" command line option has been modified: now it expects a fully qualified name of a folder that contains alternative configuration files to load.
Fixes:
- In some rare cases, window settings did not re-apply after modification.
- Crashes in dwm.exe happened occasionally.
- In some cases, Control Center might crash upon reloading the configuration.
- When launching Actual Transparent Window after Stardock DeskScapes, Windows Explorer crashed or became unstable.
- With Actual Transparent Window running, capturing a video in TechSmith's Jing made it crash upon closing.
- Title buttons did not appear in the Windows Media Center window.
- Additional commands did not appear in the Windows Media Center window menu after switching its window back from full-screen.
- After unghosting a window with the "Unghost temporarily" key combination, the window could not be ghosted back.
- Configuration windows stayed out of sight when they were located on a secondary monitor and the monitor got disabled.