Transparency

Make BB your own

Transparency puts animated backdrops behind BB’s translucent surfaces. A live sample workspace lets you preview the look while adjusting colors, opacity, frost, and motion.

• Choose Flow, Aurora, Nebula, Waves, Silk, or Contours, plus Glow, a plain backdrop, or your own wallpaper URL.
• Match BB’s theme, choose a palette, or set three custom colors.
• Adjust the sidebar, composer, and popup frost independently.
• Import, edit, preview, save, and export your own GLSL shaders. A successful preview is required before saving an unchanged shader.
• Keep a local library of up to eight shaders. Resetting appearance retains your library.

Start in a minute

Requires BB 0.41.0 or later. Install Transparency, open it in the sidebar or BB Settings, and turn on Enable transparency. No account, API key, or subscription is needed.

Choose a backdrop in the library. Use Look, Surfaces, and Motion to adjust it. For custom code, choose Add shader, import a GLSL or Transparency JSON file, select Preview shader, then Save & use.

The effect starts disabled. Preferences save automatically and synchronize across open windows of this BB installation. Use BB’s plugin update controls to install compatible releases.

Built for everyday use

Compact screens keep reading surfaces opaque and pause the global shader; desktop settings return when the window is wider. Reduced motion renders a still frame, hidden tabs pause animation, and quality presets cap frame rate and resolution. If WebGL is unavailable, a CSS backdrop keeps BB usable.

Transparency changes the background inside BB; it does not reveal your desktop through the native window. Settings apply to the BB installation, including its remote browser windows. Custom shader support and performance depend on the browser and graphics device.

Your data and graphics

Settings and shader source stay in this installation’s plugin storage. Shaders use GLSL, with no JavaScript, external textures, or includes. A wallpaper URL you choose is fetched directly by your browser from its original website. There is no required external service or analytics integration.

Setup and shader guide · Source and releases · Report an issue