Gray background behind app windows?

On Sep 18, 2009, at 3:00 PM, [email protected] wrote:

> From: Duncan Champney <[email protected]>
> Date: September 18, 2009 2:18:39 PM EDT
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: Steve Sheets <[email protected]>
> Subject: Gray background behind app windows?
>
>
> Folks,
>
> Apps like Photoshop (PS) used to have an option to blank out the  
> desktop behind their windows to a flat gray. That reduced visual  
> clutter so artists could focus on the app's windows.
>
> I have Photoshop CS3, not CS4 (I tend to update every other time to  
> try to save a little money) so I don't know how it works in CS4, but  
> in CS3 under Leopard, it looks like PS turns the document window  
> into a "super window" that fills the whole screen and has gray  
> borders all the way around.
>
> Our company is working on rewriting a legacy OS 7/8/9/ app for OS X  
> (>= 10.5), and the legacy app has the option to blank out everything  
> behind the app's windows to dull gray.
>
> Does anybody know a way to do this in OS X without either going to  
> full-screen mode (and losing Cocoa's support for document windows,  
> tool palettes, etc.) or turning the front  document into a monster  
> that takes up the whole screen, with the content placed in a  
> resizeable view in the middle? That's doable, but less elegant than  
> the gray background old OS 9 apps used to use, and doesn't allow the  
> user to see more than one document window at a time.
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Duncan C
> WareTo LLC
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Kyle Sluder <[email protected]>
> Date: September 18, 2009 2:56:29 PM EDT
> To: Duncan Champney <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected], Steve Sheets <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Gray background behind app windows?
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Duncan Champney <[email protected]>  
> wrote:
>> Does anybody know a way to do this in OS X without either going to
>> full-screen mode (and losing Cocoa's support for document windows,  
>> tool
>> palettes, etc.) or turning the front  document into a monster that  
>> takes up
>> the whole screen, with the content placed in a resizeable view in the
>> middle? That's doable, but less elegant than the gray background  
>> old OS 9
>> apps used to use, and doesn't allow the user to see more than one  
>> document
>> window at a time.
>
> Create a screen-sized NSWindow and set its level using -[NSWindow  
> setLevel:].
>
> --Kyle Sluder
>
>


Kyle,

What level should I use? I would want the gray window to be behind all  
of my app's other windows, but in front of other apps and in front of  
the desktop. I could not find a level value for setLevel that would do  
what I needed. I tried most of the different available level settings,  
but no luck.

Right now I am working on creating a screen-sized window with  
styleMask: NSBorderlessWindowMask, at the default level for my app,  
then using -orderBack to put it behind my other app windows.

The problem with that is that if I click on the gray window, the  
system brings it in front of my other app windows. I tried overriding  
NSWindow's -mouseDown method and having that method do nothing, but  
the system still brings the gray window to the front.

How would I get the system to ignore mousedowns in the window so it  
does not get moved to the front?


Duncan