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Where WMgrPort (the Window Manager's port), MultiFinder, and drawing
outside of one's windows will be reconciled.
[Apr 01 1988]
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Beware
Drawing outside of windows from within an application is guaranteed to make
that application less compatible with future systems. In order to be as
MultiFinder compatible as possible, draw only in response to an update event or
as part of the feedback for a user action, i.e. while tracking the mouse.
MultiFinder compatibility is just as important as HFS compatibility!
MultiFinder documentation warns against drawing in WMgrPort since the
system "owns" the desktop and windows of other applications besides your own
are drawn within it. This note will tell you how and when to draw outside the
confines of your own windows if you feel that you must.
In the future the system may provide calls for drawing outside your windows
safely. When that occurs, the techniques described here may no longer be valid.
Nevertheless....
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WMgrPort and GrayRgn
WMgrPort has its visRgn set to include all active screens. Its
clipRgn is initially set to "wide open" (the rectangle -32767, -32767,
32767, 32767), although Window Manager routines like ClipAbove, etc.
will change it. Consider this GrafPort read-only. The global variable
GrayRgn is a region which is equal to the WMgrPort's
visRgn minus the menu bar area.
Note that you should use GrayRgn, which is the best way to find out
the shape, size, and coordinates of the screens. You will never have to use the
WMgrPort directly, and should not call GetWMgrPort under any
circumstances.
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Rules
Only draw to the whole screen/desktop in a "modal" way. This can take the form
of a brief animation across windows or the visual feedback for dragging from
one window to another. It is important to know that no other application
(including the Finder) will draw until you have finished. To guarantee this,
you must follow some rules:
In the case of a drag, you should only draw while the mouse button is down. In
the case of an animation effect, the drawing should be of brief duration. All
operations should conclude with nothing left drawn outside your windows. Under
MultiFinder (version 1.0 and 6.0 at least) you will be OK if you don't call
GetNextEvent, EventAvail, or WaitNextEvent while
drawing outside your windows. Use the StillDown function (or the
WaitMouseUp function) for loops that wait for the mouse button to go
up. Remember, however, it is only through possible future system-provided calls
that you can be completely safe from others drawing underneath you.
Never draw something on the desktop and leave it there. There is no way to tell
the system that you have drawn on that bit of desktop, so the Finder will draw
right over you.
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Examples
The most famous animation effect is the ZoomRect routine. It is used
by the Finder to draw a series of nested rectangles around an icon that is
being opened. The rectangles form a progression (zoom) out to where the window
for the icon will be placed.
Another, potentially more interesting, case is where you want to drag something
from one window to another, perhaps to copy it. This is often done with
DragGrayRgn, which for this purpose will do the right thing (not call
GetNextEvent, etc.).
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How to do these effects
Use a GrafPort (not a window or the WMgrPort) that covers all
the screens. OpenPort will set up most of the fields of the
GrafPort properly. All you have to do is change the visRgn of
your port to a copy of GrayRgn and put the GrayRgn's
rgnBBox into your portRect. Directly manipulating the
visRgn of a window is a no-no under MultiFinder.
Draw using srcXor mode. This will allow you to erase as you go, by
drawing each object a second time, also in srcXor mode. You must leave
all areas outside your windows exactly as you found them.
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WDEFs and MDEFs
Window and menu definition procedures draw in the current port, which is set to
the WMgrPort by the Window Manager and the Menu Manager. Note that
this means that you do not ever have to call GetWMgrPort, as mentioned
above. We recommend that you never draw into it except from one of these
procedures.
Back to top References
The Window Manager
QuickDraw
MultiFinder Development Package
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Downloadables
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Acrobat version of this Note (48K).
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Download
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