December 15, 2005

Contact: Michael Tretyakov
Company: Actual Tools
Title: Chief Executive Officer
E-mail: press@ActualTools.com

Transparency Effect: Theory and Practice

Part 1: Theory

Introduction

Actual Window Manager can be used to solve many problems and is really multifunctional, but here we will enlighten one very interesting and convenient feature.

Along with common techniques of switching between applications windows Actual Window Manager offers depth-based window ordering, a Transparency effect. It allows you to make any window semi-transparent, with the transparency level being easily adjusted from 0% (fully transparent) to 100% (solid).

But what is the real benefit of Transparency effect? The option is useful when you work with two windows. Click the Transparency button on the title bar and the current window becomes semi-transparent so that you can still work with it but see the contents of the other one behind it. While typing something in MS Word, you need for example, to follow information in the internet browser. Push Win-T (on/off transparent effect) or click the Transparency button on the title bar and a window of MS Word will become transparent.

Part 2: Practice

Every day, we receive a lot of letters from users of Actual Window Manager where they share their experience of using our software. In this part we'll mention only the most interesting and instructive cases.

Transparent Tablet PC Input Panel

Jeff Van West, the author of Tablet PC Quick Reference by Microsoft Press and a regular columnist on the Microsoft Expert Zone website wrote us about his experience of working with Actual Window Manager and Transparent Tablet PC Input Panel.

"The handwriting input is done through a floating Input Panel that grows in size as you write. The growing Input Panel slowly obscures everything on your screen until you enter the text. There is a piece of freeware someone developed for the pre-SP2 Tablet operating system that makes Input Panel partially transparent, but it doesn't work on the new Input Panel.

Actual Window Manager comes to the rescue with Window Rules and transparency. You can make any window transparent with Actual Window Manager if you want, but you can also set rules so specific windows are transparent all the time. A transparent Input Panel lets you read what's underneath as you write."

Comparing Stock Charts

Kevin Wisner, a stock daytrader, told us about how the usage of Transparency effect helped him in routine operations.

"I currently use 70% transparency with ghosting to overlay one stock chart over another stock chart. This allows me access to the "lower" stock chart while still viewing the transparent ghosted stock chart. It is likely that I will use the transparency and ghosting features in the future for other ideas as I come up with them."

Transparent Worksheets

Recently we have received a letter from one of our users with the certain problem. So, here it is: working with Excel worksheets, he wants to put an image under the spreadsheet list and make a picture of the screen. Nothing is so simple when you use Actual Window Manager and Transparency effect.

Here we illustrated only one feature of Actual Window Manager but it will help to save your time and efforts when you work with several applications simultaneously. Actual Window Manager has more than forty productivity tools which you can use to control every window on your screen.

Availability and Pricing

Actual Window Manager is available as 60-day trial download. Actual Tools offers multiple-user discounts on licenses for Actual Window Manager, starting at US $39.95 for a single-user license. The details are available at http://www.ActualTools.com/windowmanager/ .

If you have some questions concerning our software or need some additional information, please contact us at press@actualtools.com. We are always happy to help you!

About Actual Tools

Founded in 2001, Actual Tools is a quickly developing interactive software company, focused on developing, publishing and distributing desktop enhancement applications that add a new look and feel to an average Windows operated PC system. The company's flagship product Actual Window Manager has become a "must-have-software" in homes and offices in more than 100 countries.

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AN EVALUATION COPY IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
Product page link: http://www.ActualTools.com/windowmanager/
Direct Download link: http://www.ActualTools.com/files/aimsetup.exe
E-mail: press@actualtools.com
Company web-site: http://www.ActualTools.com
Press-center: http://www.ActualTools.com/press/