translucenttb.cpp

#include <windows.h>




void SetWindowBlur(HWND hWnd)
{
	const HINSTANCE hModule = LoadLibrary(TEXT("user32.dll"));
	if (hModule)
	{
		struct ACCENTPOLICY
		{
			int nAccentState;
			int nFlags;
			int nColor;
			int nAnimationId;
		};
		struct WINCOMPATTRDATA
		{
			int nAttribute;
			PVOID pData;
			ULONG ulDataSize;
		};
		typedef BOOL(WINAPI*pSetWindowCompositionAttribute)(HWND, WINCOMPATTRDATA*);
		const pSetWindowCompositionAttribute SetWindowCompositionAttribute = (pSetWindowCompositionAttribute)GetProcAddress(hModule, "SetWindowCompositionAttribute");
		if (SetWindowCompositionAttribute)
		{
			ACCENTPOLICY policy = { 3, 0, 0, 0 }; // ACCENT_ENABLE_BLURBEHIND=3...
			WINCOMPATTRDATA data = { 19, &policy, sizeof(ACCENTPOLICY) }; // WCA_ACCENT_POLICY=19
			SetWindowCompositionAttribute(hWnd, &data);
		}
		FreeLibrary(hModule);
	}
}


int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPreInst, LPSTR pCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{

	HWND taskbar = FindWindow(L"Shell_TrayWnd", NULL);
	
	
	while (true) { 
		SetWindowBlur(taskbar); Sleep((DWORD)10);
	}

}

Cool! I'm a beginner at Windows programming, so I have a few questions ;)
Could you elaborate on why you have to re-run SetWindowBlur every 10 ms? Is there some mechanism that resets the taskbar window very often?
Also, I would have done most of the setup in your SetWindowBlur in WinMain (i.e. only once), and then only called SetWindowCompositionAttribute every 10 ms. Is there a reason that you load and unload the library every time you want to re-apply the composition attributes?
Thanks for your time and the very nice tweak, in any case :)

You're da Real MVP...

@grebnetiew It needs to refresh every 10 ms as opening the start button will make the blur go away.

Also, At line 40, is the L a mistype? It works without the L and it only gives errors.

Ah I see. Thanks :)

@sadphi the L is a unicode macro. See https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dybsewaf.aspx

Downloading your compiled exe from a link to your Google Drive reveals that it is infected with "Gen:Variant.Razy.110665".
What gives? Both Google and my own protection software catches it.

Probably a stupid question (I have pretty much no C++ experience), but why does your compiled exe make the taskbar completely transparent (and this code doesn't)? Also your image on Reddit shows a translucent taskbar, not a transparent one.

Rewritten for AutoHotkey: https://github.com/jNizM/AHK_Scripts/blob/master/src/others/SetWindowBlur.ahk

Is there a Chance to get the transparent taskbar on more than one monitor?

@morganrpugh I see, thanks

@Eweol For this information, follow my link I posted above =)

@jNizM I compiled your autohotkey script and it works for a few seconds before the script appears to crash.

Waiting for the v2 :D

So just exactly how would i instal this code? Does it come in a executable version?

A lot has happened since this was published. Please see https://github.com/TranslucentTB/TranslucentTB/ for more.