CAUTION: -------- This section describes the lowest-level graphics interface to the system hardware. If you use any of the routines and the data structures described in these sections, your program will essentially take over the entire display. In general, this is not compatible with Intuition's multiwindow operating environment since Intuition calls these low-level routines for you. The descriptions of the display routines, as well as those of the drawing routines, occasionally use the same terminology as that in the Intuition chapters. These routines and data structures are the same ones that Intuition software uses to produce its displays. The computer produces a display from a set of instructions you define. You organize the instructions as a set of parameters known as the View structure (see the <graphics/view.h> include file for more information). The following figure shows how the system interprets the contents of a View structure. This drawing shows a complete display composed of two different component parts, which could (for example) be a low-resolution, multicolored part and a high-resolution, two-colored part. VIDEO DISPLAY _________________________ | | | _____________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ViewPort #1 | | | | | | Background color | | | | / shows here | |_____________________| |/ | _________________ / | /| | /| | / | | / | |/ | | | / | ViewPort #2 | | /| | | | ViewPorts must be / | | | | seperated by at | |_________________| | least one blank line | | (sometimes more). |_________________________| A complete display is composed of one or more "ViewPorts" Figure 27-9: The Display Is Composed of ViewPorts A complete display consists of one or more ViewPorts, whose display sections are vertically separated from each other by at least one blank scan line (non-interlaced). (If the system must make many changes to the display during the transition from one ViewPort to the next, there may be two or more blank scanlines between the ViewPorts.) The viewable area defined by each ViewPort is rectangular. It may be only a portion of the full ViewPort, it may be the full ViewPort, or it may be larger than the full ViewPort, allowing it to be moved within the limits of its DisplayClip. You are essentially defining a display consisting of a number of stacked rectangular areas in which separate sections of graphics rasters can be shown. Limitations on the Use of Viewports Characteristics of a Viewport Viewport Size Specifications Viewport Color Selection Viewport Display Modes Viewport Display Memory Forming a Basic Display Loading and Displaying the View Monitors, Modes and the Display Database