Dear All,
I’ve just added a new chapter to my Java Graphics and Gaming online book at
http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg
The chapter’s called “Shapely Applications”, and is about
a way to make applications any shape you like. It’s chapter 4.5.
Comments appreciated.
Looks good. The screenshot on focus gain was new to me. Nice idea 
The IFrame class from Michael Abernethy doesn’t do that trick (at least the version, I tried out some months ago didn’t).
Two suggestions:
-Point out (at the very beginning) that it takes screenshot via awt.robot and therefore it cannot be used in unsigned webstart applications. [Taking screenshots could be used for spying… well, theoretically at least.]
-Figure 4 (the layered view) looks a bit busy. You could use a simpler looking desktop there (eg a basically empty desktop with a landscape background) and/or you could make it 2 images. One the left side a desktop with the JFrame’s outlines and on the right side the 3 layers in a stacked side view.
And uhm… make that 3… heh. I think if I would google for something like that I would use the term “non rectangular windows” (or JFrame).
I hadn’t actually read the source. However, that wait piece is somewhat hacky. Slower cpus/graphic cards could require a longer delay. Well, the WindowListener has WindowClosed(WindowEvent e) and WindowClosing(WindowEvent e), but I’m not sure if they could help there.
Thanks for the comments.
Yes, the sleep period is a bit hacky.
As I understand it, there’s no way to discover when the application has actually disappeared from the screen.