Could bgex patch or similar be added?

[Ivan Andrus <darthandrus@gmail.com>]

I use emacs from CVS for the sole reason of applying the background  
pixmap patch found at
http://umiushi.org/~wac/bgex/
I was wondering if there are any plans for something like this to be  
integrated into emacs.  Miles Bader's transparent emacs branch may  
have done this, but I could never find it, so I assume it died.  For  
me there are two key features.

First is that that different backgrounds can be assigned to different  
modes and/or buffer names.  This is very useful to me since I can  
instantly see that I am editing my .emacs file and not some other  
elisp file, and certainly not a C++ file.  Perhaps this can be done  
today in vanilla emacs, but I haven't tried too hard.  I would be  
interested in snippets if anyone has some hanging around.

Second is that using a (very muted) picture as a background seems  
easier on my eyes than either solid colors or true transparency  
(though transparency is definitely cool and I use it in Carbon Emacs  
since the patch doesn't work on NS/Carbon).

Unfortunately, I don't speak any Japanese, so I can't help there but,  
time permitting, I might be able to get it to work on NS (though I  
don't really know anything about the emacs internals so it would take  
me quite a bit of time).

-Ivan