Here a proof of concept for a future teaching assignment (ok ok, also my own “itch” ;)… Build your own media player. Here PyGame is used to make a simple frameless window (which because of the black background *appears* to blend into my mostly black desktop image)… Also, the code makes use of Fabien Devaux’s lightweight python mplayer wrapper (that wraps a python class/object around mplayer’s “slave” mode).
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I was struggling with getting the layering right using a transparent background and ended up making this. In the process, I (re) learned how relative positioning lets elements be both in the “flow” of a layout, and still layered. (I was having the problem “normal” elements would appear underneath the absolutely positioned transparent background layer.)