Re:Creating Windows XP Icons (2001)
by int_19h on Thursday December 13, 2018 @05:07PM
(#18676565)
You're right - the gradient was in Win98.
As far as translucency - Win2K introduced the new APIs that any app could use to make a window translucent. That was used for those fade-on-click effects, and also for tooltips. But after people figured out that you could do it on any top-level window, there was a brief craze where random apps added it as an option, sometimes for no reason at all other than showing off (like, why would a CD burning app need a translucent window?).
As far as translucency - Win2K introduced the new APIs that any app could use to make a window translucent. That was used for those fade-on-click effects, and also for tooltips. But after people figured out that you could do it on any top-level window, there was a brief craze where random apps added it as an option, sometimes for no reason at all other than showing off (like, why would a CD burning app need a translucent window?).