At 12:37 pm 31/05/99 +1100, you wrote:
>> > We also still need someone to implement the screen display routines. That
>> > is, drawing of objects onscreen in a fast way and with correct
overlapping.
>>
>> We can use DirectDraw for speed if necessary.
>
>Where can I look at the API for DirectDraw.
I can mail you the directx6 sdk help (in chm format). DirectDraw is a
bitch to learn, though. I still haven't got the hang of it after a year of
mucking around.
>> >This could also be started on Windows if the authors create wrappers
around
>> >Windows data structures and API calls. That means the authors will have to
>> >create some classes that enclose and hide any drawing calls and map
them to
>> >the appropriate Windows calls.
>>
>> The Microsoft Foundation Classes (heavily built-in Visual C++) provide
>> wrapper classes for all win32 functions.
>
>Where can I find these too. I would like to avoid any classes that are
compiler
>specific. We want to be as portable as possible.
The MFC's come with Visual C++. You can use them with any other C++
compiler - but you need a more in-depth understanding of them to code MFC
without Visual C++. As they wrap Win32 functions I have felt no need so
far to learan Win32, though it is a hell of a lot faster.
>> >Another part of the code should only call
>> >these wrappers and be completely platform-independent and perform the
>> >actual drawing operations (i.e. drawing a roundRect and a shadowed button
>> >overlapping correctly...).
>>
>> Yeah, that sounds brilliant. Basically what your saying is that we create
>> a back-end of functions (one set identically named for each platform) and
>> the main code calls these.
>
>> Dylan
>
>As soon as I can afford to buy VirtualPC I would like to contribute some PC
>code. Then we can test it with CodeWarrior and Visual C++ on Windows.
>
>Dylan, do you have a Mac? It would be good if you could look at the mac
>executables so we can make sure everything is working the same.
I don't have a mac (I'm going to win an iMac in a competition I hope), but
I'm on res at Uni, and heaps of me mates have Mac's so that's not a prob.
I can also get a copy of CodeWarrior. Perhaps if we write raw Win32 code
we can use the 'back-end' on many windows c++ compilers. CodeWarror,
Visual C++ and Borland C++ seem to be our options for a compiler.
Dylan
