Hey,
I have a panel which sits on top of a control that renders video. I have controls (buttons, etc), on that panel which I want to be fully opaque. Now, creating a transparent panel background is doable, by overriding the CreateParams property. However, how to I make a panel with a semi-transparent (~50% opacity) background, while keeping the buttons fully opaque?
I am using .NET 2.0.
You could use two panels, one placed within the other. The outer panel has no background, and hosts the inner panel and the controls, and the inner panel, whose Z-Index places it behind the controls, provides the semi-transparent background.
I'll admit that I'm suggesting this without actually verifying that this will work...
In the end it turned out that this isn't possible really, setting transparency on a panel is pretty rubbish in WinForms.
The workaround I used was to render the controls manually onto the given surface, and alter the alpha values appropriately.