BmpGlueSetTransparency and offscreen bitmaps – it doesn’t work

As I am working on my new background transparent text blitter, I just made a shocking discovery when porting the code from OnBoardC to PODS – you can’t access the internals of bitmaps(more on that another day, for now, #define ALLOW_ACCESS_TO_INTERNALS_OF_BITMAPS will do). Luckily, the Palm OS Glue library comes along with a handy function called BmpGlueSetTransparency – use it, and the problems start. Bitmaps will suddenly “loose” their transparency attributes, leading to funky consequences!

Anyways, the reason for this is simple – some super wise man at PalmSource decided to make the BmpGlueSetTransparency function non-working with offscreen bitmaps. Now that is a great idea by a realy wise man – once the bitmap is drawn and the background is obfuscated, I fix the transparency for “next time”…

As of now, I am not really happy about my hack and think about how I can create “onscreen bitmaps” – all feedback is welcome, and keep your eyes peeled!

Related posts:

1. On distorted bitmaps
2. PODS 1.2 and bitmaps is a catastrophe!!!
3. Creating text with transparent background
4. Apple doesnt know how to patent their OWN ideas!
5. Why a T3/TC-owner doesnt feel like getting a TX