Partially transparent backgrounds ?

[Julie de Wet]

Hi

I have a gui with a picture as background, and transparent labels. I want to set the background of the labels so that they are only partially transparent, so that my background is less obtrusive where I have text.

As far as I can see a label can either be opaque or transparent and not some inbetween value.

I tried using a gif which was partially transparent as background for the label and setting opaque to false, but that didn't work

Does anyone else know how, or have any suggestions

Thanx

[David Weitzman]

You might want to try

label.setOpaque(true);
label.setBackground(new Color(redComponent, greenComponent, blueComponent, 30));

Where 30 is just an arbitrary alpha value from 0-255 setting the transparency (0 is invisible, 255 is opaque). However when I tried it (two partially transparent backgrounds for JLabels in a JLayeredPane) the background was actually changing color after repaints...so...hmmm. Maybe it'll work for you?

The first alternative which comes into my mind is this:

     JLabel backgroundComponent = new JLabel(imageIcon) {
            public void paint(Graphics g) {
                Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
                g2d.setColor(getBackground());
                g2d.fillRect(0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight());
                g2d.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, 0.2f));
                super.paint(g);
            }
        };