Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!hsgj From: hsgj@batcomputer.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: IntuiIdeas Message-ID: <2911@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 18:41:41 EST Article-I.D.: batcompu.2911 Posted: Thu Nov 12 18:41:41 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 14:38:07 EST References: <2873@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <4204@garfield.UUCP> Reply-To: hsgj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Dan Green) Distribution: na Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY Lines: 49 Keywords: Some suggestions for intuition. In article <4204@garfield.UUCP> john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell) writes: >>3) Have a DEPTH parameter for OpenWindow calls. This would break >>code, but bear with me... I have an application that opens a 4 bitplane >>interlaced screen. On this screen are 4 windows. One is a drawing >>window and needs the color. The other three, however, are just text >>windows and only need to be one bitplane (eg black/white) deep. > >Have you thought of opening an interlaced deep screen from 0,0 to 640,300 and a >mono (possibly noninterlaced) screen from 0,301 to 640,400? That's assuming >you don't need to do major resizing and dragging. Otherwise I imagine the >Layers library has these things... if not, what advantages does it offer over >the window functions? > >John This is a good idea, but for the application I have in mind one monochrome window is a 'pallette' that is vertical. Now if I could have horizontal side by side screens then maybe your suggestion would work... I haven't looked at the layers library stuff because I'm not sure if using it and Intuition would be wise (eg arranging something by calling layers directly might screw up some internal structs in Intuition). This is just a hypothesis. Anyways, the advantage of having depth-settable windows is simply to conserve the off-screen smart-refresh area that Intuition maintains. Actually if Intuition uses FAST ram when buffering windows then conserving the memory is not that important. If it uses CHIP for that purpose, then buffering becomes very important -- Three of my windows consume 3/4 of the screen area each (they are overlapped). Now the screen is 640x400x4 = 128K. 3/4 of this is 96K, which means that Intuition is keeping at least 96 * 2 or 192K of refresh-buffered windows, while displaying 128K of screen consisting of the third and fourth window. That is a total of 320K for screen stuff alone. Now if those buffered windows were only 1 plane, they'd only take up 24K, and the total ram usage would be 24 * 2 + 128 = 176K. That is MUCH more reasonable then 320K. That is why I want a depth paraemeter on windows. PS - Before anyone construes this as flamage, let me assure you that I am not criticizing anything and am just stating a wish. The above- mentioned program has a switch so you can specify interlace or not and the number of planes; thus if you have a shortage of ram you just don't get a lot of colors or screen real estate. This prog, by the way, will be free as it is being done under educational auspices, but do not hold your breath. The superbowl will come and go before this sees the light of day... -- Dan Green -- ARPA: hsgj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu UUCP: ihnp4!cornell!batcomputer!hsgj BITNET: hsgj@cornella