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From: datta@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Slarti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 'Virtual Monitors'
Message-ID: <2377@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jan 90 18:31:51 GMT
References: <9264@cbmvax.commodore.com> <3511@hub.UUCP> <9383@cbmvax.commodore.com>
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Reply-To: datta@cs-sun-fsb.UUCP (Slarti)
Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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In article <9383@cbmvax.commodore.com> mitchell@cbmvax.commodore.com (Fred Mitchell - PA) writes:
>1) To keep your Workbench from becomming cluttered- If every application
>   opened up its 'work area' on Workbench (Desktop to you Mac types),
>   you would wind up with alot of unnecessary clutter (remember, this is a
>   multitasking machine, and you could potentially have lots of programs 
>   running!
>
There are two versions of MultiFinder.  The developers version adds the
"put away" option that hides all windows belonging to an application and puts
it in the background, yielding a similar effect.  Hopefully, newer versions
of the standard MultiFinder (or Sys 7) will have this feature.

>2) To allow the application to take on its own color palette and resolution
>   modes and number of bit-planes, so as to not interfere with other programs.
>
The palette manager and color manager take care of this in a far better
fashion.  Each window can have it's own palette.  The palette of the
foreground window is active, and the OS automaticially renders the background
windows as well as possible with the current palette.  Macs only work in
HIGH resolution mode.

>3) To allow direct writes to the bitmap for extra speed- somthing you CANNOT 
>   do in a single-screen environment without taking over the machine.
>

Macs are already fast, this isn't necessary :-).  Actually, there are safe
ways to write directly to the screen, since you can easily get the location
in memory of a window's bitmap. It seems many people don't know how to do
this, however.

All an application has to do to more or less emulate the Amiga's screen
environment is open up a full screen sized window and hide it when sent into
the background.