How To: Semi-Transparency

[sireesanwar.livejournal.com]

Theme: All
How To: Set the Opacity of an Element (Make a color on your journal appear slightly transparent)

I've often wonder how you would accomplish this look:


Option 1: As it turns out there is a simple way to do this.
Black:
background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) ;
This is based on the RGB color scale so (0, 0, 0) is black. When you add the 0.6 you are adding the transparency. 0.9 is rather dark but 0.1 is super light almost completely transparent.

White:
background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6) ;

Red:
background-color: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.6) ;
To find or customize a color for transparency you can check programs like PhotoShop or Paint Shop and when you have the color for painting they usually give you the numbers for RGB or you can use this RGB Color Chart.

Option 2: Another other option is this:
background-color: #000000; filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5;
The unfortunate part about using this code for the header links is it will also make the text semi-transparent.

Option 3: Using an image background that was created to have an opacity or semi-transparency already built into it. This only works some of the time as some browsers don't support it. The image should be a png. To do this you would want this coding:
background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2ds4v49.jpg) repeat;
Below are a black and white semi-transparent image. You can't fully tell here for the white one but it does work.


Option 4: You want complete transparency of an item like the background to the sidebar. Note: The above sidebar is set to transparent but the actual components are not. So under the sidebar coding it we are using the below code:
background-color: transparent !important;
For the components "sbarbody" and "sbarbody2" the background color is set to white.

I hope this helps you in your semi-transparent endeavors.

Comments

[leandralocke.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, that looks pretty amazing. I would just need to adjust some of the fonts (i.e. the entry headline) but I'm sure I could figure that out by myself. I actually do like the sidebar on top. Just pondering on which elements to include in it. Would this be something to just paste into the custom css box or something to upload as external style sheet?

When I was trying things earlier I just added the code for the specific class into that box, but nothing changed.

This (http://i43.tinypic.com/2w5sm7r.jpg) is what my settings look like.

Oh btw, THAT pasted code does work. The image is just empty right now. But this one works.

[sireesanwar.livejournal.com]

No problem. You can adjust anything you want. Just be careful not to delete anything but what you want to change because if one ; is missing the whole thing falls apart and it is next to impossible to find. ;-)

So I'm going to upload the coding to that comm workshop_rees because that is where I test stuff.

You are going to want those questions to be Yes, No, No. Then you can copy and paste the code from the comm to your custom stylesheet box and it should work.

[leandralocke.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Thank you so much.

if I do have problems adjusting something I want, can I get back to you? I did find a good overview/tutorial thing, so that should help, but I might get stuck here and there. Like I said, I'm pretty much a total noob.

Also what about the header code that I already have in my box? Will something like this be in the new code as well or can I just add this bit somewhere?

[sireesanwar.livejournal.com]

Just ask me and I'll do my best to help.

It is incorporated.

[sireesanwar.livejournal.com]

I only have the sidebar equipped for links, blurb, and tags in that order. If you want a different set up I'd have to make some adjustments.

[leandralocke.livejournal.com]

I'll have a look first and then get back to you. Though those trhee should actually be sufficient and okay in that order. Thanks :)