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From: ccc_ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Window drop shadow trivium
Message-ID: <1444.26e3ecdf@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: 4 Sep 90 06:05:18 GMT
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 25

I hadn't noticed this until someone pointed it out to me, but there's
an interesting little fudge with the drop shadows on the standard document
windows on machines with the 256K colour ROM (Mac II, IIx, IIcx and SE/30).
Namely, the top and left edges of the shadow don't start one pixel
down and right, respectively, from the window edge (the way they do
on the black-and-white machines); they start right at the edge of the window.

I was told that this was done to avoid a complicated-shaped window
structure region, which would have slowed down window updates.

This fudge is undone in the 512K ROM; I guess Apple feels the IIci
and IIfx are fast enough to handle the extra detail.

Also, I noticed that, under System 7.0a9, my Mac II displays the
drop shadow the "way it should"! Either Apple have some new, faster,
code, or they've decided that the speed gain isn't worth the
compromise to the design of the user interface...

Lawrence D'Oliveiro                       fone: +64-71-562-889
Computer Services Dept                     fax: +64-71-384-066
University of Waikato            electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand    37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+12:00
NZ, 1877: "As it was Sunday, all the shops were closed, and we had
to prove we were bona fide travellers before they would give us lunch
at the hotel."