Q:

No transparent background despite setting transparent to 'true.'

Just started with Lazarus. Here's the problem: I placed a panel on a form and set the panel's color to clRed. I then placed a TImage on the panel. I loaded a bitmap (.bmp) image into the image component. 
However, although the image appears as it should, the background is not transparent (i.e. red), despite my having checked the 'transparent' box for the relevant TImage in the object inspector. 
So, what have I done wrong this time?

A:

"Transparent" in relation to bmp means: Replace a given color by the background. Usually this color is defined by the pixel in the left/bottom (or top?) corner of the image. Do you have the correct color at this point?
Usually there are less issues with transparency if a png image with true alpha channel is loaded into the TImage. For a test try the paw.png in the folder images\splash_source\ of the Lazarus installation - it is working perfectly.

