Ok, let me explain. I am intending this for skinnable button images and etc. in Litestep and other skinnable thingummys, but it'd also work great for webpage graphics or graphic whatevers in general. The first problem is, I am on NT4 which can't handle png alpha channel natively, so I use an Autohotkey script to send a png and a background color to rpng.exe which paints a png on top of my intended background color with alpha-blend, Alt-PrintScreen to capture the window, and open in MSpaint or Ultimate Paint ('cause it handles png's and it's got a funky interface) to snip the graphic out and convert to png bmp or ico from there. Cumbersome to say the least.
Here's the Challenge: to shorten this process.
Sources and binaries for rpng are available at http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/sources.html
Hack the source or code your own which will do pretty much the same as rpng.exe But...
send output to file (png,bmp,jpg,etc.) or graphics editor (too many to list)
I've tried simply piping rpng.exe output to a file (rpng.exe > foo.bmp) but to no avail. rpng is intended only as an example thingamabob for coders and it appears they meant it.... Perhaps someone has an idea on how Autohotkey or some similar script prog can simply wait for the window to open and automagically cut out the contents of the window and save it rather than copying a picture of the entire window as Alt-PrintScreen does now.

So, I was just wondering...
I assume most of the folks haunting this board are either curious about what 'programmers' do, have done a little here and there and some are real 'Coders'. So, on the topic of programming in general, where's the best starting-place for beginners? What's free and what costs a lot and what's the heck difference anyway? How does scripting differ from interpreted? What's high level vs. low? What are some folks' experience with say, Delphi vs. Java? And fer Peet's sake, what in a pig's eye is .NET?? We've all seen by now what can be done with a fairly full-featured scripting language, but whats below the surface that might make C++ or some other more in-depth tool any more rewarding? And why the snobbery? Is Assembly really all that hard?
I'm not really asking these for my own curiosity, just that the thread on scripting utilities started by zridling took on a tangent that just left me wondering at the fact that we have a bunch of capable coders hanging around with a bunch of curious potential acolytes waiting for the invitation through the blue scr... erm, door. Is there a website or forum on another board where these and related questions are answered and discussed, or can something be set up here at DonationCoder? (I have no idea how much forum bandwidth costs, and no use being redundant...) Just wondering...