How to Make Windows Transparent with Click Through

Sep 15, 2011

Why would you need a transparent window? Just for aesthetic purposes? Just to look different? In my case I create scripts almost everyday and I utilize many applications simultaneously including Notepad++, Dreamweaver, DOS console, web browser etc. to create scripts. To access the necessary information between each application, I have to perform numerous Alt+Tab key combinations to get what I need. While this requires only just a few seconds of my time, in the long run it will surely slow me down. Making application windows transparent, you don’t have to change the size of each window thus speeding up the coding process. Also pressing keyboard Alt+Tab key combinations will be minimized at a certain level.

Another instance that transparent windows can be of great help is when you want to monitor processes that are running beneath your code editor. As you progress crafting another script, you can also monitor at the same time the processes that are running beneath your code editor’s window. This will save you time if the script use to run the process stop at a certain point giving you the chance to act quickly. Making application windows transparent will increase your productivity allowing you to simultaneously create scripts and monitor script processes during debugging stages.

To make all these things happen, just install See Through Windows. It will only occupy 530KB of your hard drive space. What’s great about this application is that windows transparency is not permanent. You can easily turn it on or off depending on different situations. Also you can enable the ‘click through’ functionality of this tool that will allow you to access icons or buttons located beneath your current application’s window. It only uses small memory and it doesn’t eat up your system’s processing power that much.

After the very quick installation, you can access the application (reading glasses icon) via the ‘notification area’. Just right-click on the icon then click ‘Options’ to access the configurations. By default you can instantly make windows transparent by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Z. Doing it again will bring back the window to its normal mode. You can also change this hotkey so that it will not collide with your existing application that relies on this particular hotkey. The level of opacity can be easily adjusted using the slider. If you will slide it to the left the transparency will decrease. Also by ticking on the ‘Make window Click-through’ checkbox you can click any window button lying beneath the currently active window. But wait there’s more; you can also minimize every active window with Ctrl+Window log+Up/Down key combination.

To sum up, See Through Windows improves your productivity by allowing you to seamlessly access information on each window with just a few key combinations. It is available for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP for both 64-bit and 32-bit systems. It requires Microsoft .NET Framework prior to installation. But if you’re installing on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine it will not ask for it because these machines comes pre-installed with this component.

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