title: Making a control transparent
body: <p>I am currently developing a simple image editing tool using <em>Winforms</em> and <code>.NET 3.5</code> (work environment).</p>
  
  <p>I have a requirement that when the user clicks a select tool button, a square (rectangle in C#) will appear that they can scale between <code>100x100</code> and <code>400x400</code>. I have this bit fixed - the issue comes with making the background of the rectangle transparent.</p>
  
  <p>I'm a little unclear on if transparency is supported in <code>.NET 3.5</code>, I've tried the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SetStyle(ControlStyles.SupportsTransparentBackColor, true);
  pnlSelectArea.BackColor = Color.Transparent;
  pnlSelectArea.ForeColor = Color.Transparent;
  selectArea1.BackColor = Color.Transparent;
  selectArea1.ForeColor = Color.Transparent;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But this has no effect - any advice would be appreciated.</p>