Take a look at the Main_Context_Action_Status_Value_1 which is a child of Main_Context_Action_Status_1.  There is not much to it, but it's a small blue image called "Seanview_Back.png" and it's transparency setting is at 50% (on the trans tab).

Sounds reasonable, no?

Let me know how  you make out or if I need to fire up DX again.  

As a matter of fact, everywhere that Seanview appearance is used, it's a sort of stand-in for some element that isn't in the DxPack itself (little graphics and values).  I can't find a data file that is pointing there, though.

I thought I had actually deleted those Seanview objects from out of the magic cell, but I must have simply moved it away, because deleting it breaks that file altogether, making it disappear entirely from the in-game interface. So it's possible that that object is influencing the color of the bar somehow, but its not doing it by virtue of the graphic color itself, or by any of the Desktop X functions I've so far found.

It seems, like the contracting behavior, that color is established by data from elsewhere, though I've not found any likely place  yet. It's possible that kind of stuff may not be exposed, limiting what can be done to the interface.

I'm content to muddle along by myself.  If a Dev answered, it would probably be something really simple that would make me feel silly.

Are they aware of the problems with the Mods folder, though?

I'm stumped at another point, if Zubaz or anyone else who knows what they're doing is out there.  This might be sort of advanced, and just a case of me not really understanding Desktop X very well.

Right now, Im working on the main game window interface panel (MainGameWnd.Dxpack in the Screen folder). I've been swapping out the back panel art ( the Bottom_Bar_4.png in the  MainUI_Container_Back object). 

Everything's fine as long as I replace it with art the same size. But I was entertaining the idea of making a slightly larger interface. When I replace that image with an image that exceeds the 1024 width in pixel dimensions, it shows up in the DeskX environment, but disappears in the game (the overlying elements are still there, but the back panel is missing).

I thought this might be because the image was exceeding the bounds of the parent container objects, so I also enlarged all of those I could find ( in this case, MainUI_Background, and MainUI_Bottom_Container). As near as I can tell the replacement art should now be sitting within the boundaries of those objects, but still no luck.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Look at the scripts for those objects.  see if there is a screen.width/XXX or something similar.  I'll try to look later.

The first script is setting the background object to be the size of your screen.

The second script is positioning the object centered at the bottom. In any case, no help.

Thanks Cari! The image file itself that I was attempting to load into the appearance tab was > than 1024.

Here, by the way, are the fruits of my early testing to  see what I can and can't do.  In retrospect, I probably could have chosen a much easier object to modify than the main UI panel, but I am better educated for it. It was slightly more impressive before I ran into the 1024 res limit, and had to scale my concept way down (I was building around a 1200 rez)  Just quick stuff that doesnt represent the end product in the slightest:

(Now, if I can just figure out where those artifacts are coming from at the edges of my transparent .png's.)

I'll announce my mod officially sometime this week when I get another piece of eyecandy or two to show off.

Just for community information, I figured out those border artifacts around my PNGs were the result of containing solid image pixels that extended all the way out to the borders. As long as I have at least 1 pixel of transparency all the way around the border, I'm fine. 

I'm pretty sure I already knew this from a similar situation, but had forgotten.

I gave some people in chat a peek at some of the stuff Im working on. I want to have a couple decent pieces of eye candy to show when I announce the mod, which I'm thinking now will be next week.  I always tend to become over ambitious outside of any time or practical constraints. Quite a lot of work I've bitten off for myself here.  Even more work to not suck, which is always an effort for me.