Lynx transparency doesn't work

19 November 2022, 05:53:33

I know this is kind of an odd question, but I'm trying to configure transparency on my system, and the text based browser lynx refuses to become transparent. I'm using picom as my compositor and urxvt as my terminal emulator.

At first i tried going into /etc/lynx.lss and commenting out the lines that set the background colors and whatnot. That seems to be the normal way of doing this. It did nothing for me. After some research I found a YouTube video of a guy showing off his lynx setup. He had somehow gotten it to be transparent, so I tried out his configs after watching the video. I figured maybe he had something in lynx.cfg that allowed it to be transparent. The configs worked in all respects except giving me transparency.

My research and attempts might seem kinda weak, but thats just a result of there being basically no documentation about what i'm trying to do. I can technically make the window as a whole transparent using picom-trans, but that also makes the text transparent, which is extremely undesirable. If anyone has a solution to this, or even a point in the right direction, it would be much appreciated!

this is the video I watched: https://youtu.be/Vdd2MTv6vrs

I commented out the last two lines of this excerpt from my lynx.lss file:

Code: [Select]

# If you really want the terminal's default colors, and if lynx is built using
# ncurses' default-color support, remove these two lines:
normal:	normal:			lightgray:black
default:	normal:			white:black

EXTRA BS:
In case anyone's wondering why I'm even bothering with unix hipster terminal transparency, I actually have a clever use for it. I'm planning to move from my original dwm setup to the much more obscure and unusual stumpWM. StumpWM is a static tiler that allows you to have multiple windows stacked on the same tile (among other things). It sort of behaves like window swallowing, except you can cycle through windows, move em around, leave stuff playing, and just generally do some really cool stuff. This means that real window transparency has a use case beyond aesthetic. If I just need a vague idea of what's going on in a window while using my terminal, I can plop the terminal on top of it. I can watch latex documents compile and write them in the same space if that floats my boat for some reason. I can get the output of a GUI app while keeping an eye on it. You get the idea. obviously I can do these things without transparency, but with transparency it feels more smooth and seamless. Making lynx transparent is just for the sake of completeness. If my terminal is transparent, I want all my terminal based programs transparent too. otherwise, it just feels kinda awkward.

Re: Lynx transparency doesn't work

Reply #1 – 19 November 2022, 20:26:18

I fixed it (sort of)! lynx appears to use color0 (black) as it's background by default, so by changing color0 to be transparent in my .Xresources file, i was able to make lynx's background transparent. optimally, I would be able to make lynx use the background color defined in my .Xresources file, but i'm not sure how because lynx.lss is kinda confusing to me.

UPDATE: okay, so i've gotten to the root of the issue now. i believe i actually was doing this all the right way initially, but lynx.lss just straight up doesn't work. I've even tried specifying the file i want to use while launching lynx, and it still has no effect at all. it can't even change text color.

Re: Lynx transparency doesn't work

Reply #2 – 14 January 2024, 22:04:18

Quote from: boulderguy888 – on 19 November 2022, 20:26:18

I fixed it (sort of)! lynx appears to use color0 (black) as it's background by default, so by changing color0 to be transparent in my .Xresources file, i was able to make lynx's background transparent. optimally, I would be able to make lynx use the background color defined in my .Xresources file, but i'm not sure how because lynx.lss is kinda confusing to me.

UPDATE: okay, so i've gotten to the root of the issue now. i believe i actually was doing this all the right way initially, but lynx.lss just straight up doesn't work. I've even tried specifying the file i want to use while launching lynx, and it still has no effect at all. it can't even change text color.

I know this is late, but I was having the same issues but on EndeavourOS, and that article you linked 100% fixed my audio issues with Wine. I wanted to make an account just so other people who run into this issue can know that this helped me. Thanks a ton!