??? 14/11/2002 1:12:14 ??, ?/? "Wolfgang Lenerz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ??????:
>Are the sources available? > >BTW, QPTR pratically doesn't need to be updated - I've done some >work on that, and, provided one or two new functions are used, to >reduce 24 bit colours to 16 bit and set the correct MS bit, you can >use it to produce high colour PE windows from Basic. There is a distinctive problem there provided you've used just what I call bit "cropping"... ie removing by "brute-force" the highest order bits from each colour... The problem (on which I ran into while developing my all around Windoze bmp converter is that once you start chopping bits left and right you are killing the displayed picture... that's not important for sprites for example (well for me it is) as for artificial images you can have the colours pre-arranged so they won't use the whole 32 or 24 bit gamut, but nonetheless I think that we should come to an agreement on how this function should be performed... there are plenty of algorithms to go around, but the fastest (albeit not the most correct ;-) is to scan your bitmap and statistically adjust it... this can be done extremely fast if using the FPU (anybody use S.G and G.G's FPUFNs ? ) but for slow QL systems (ie Aurora - which hopefully will have it's "rendition" of the GD2 once I get a: The SGC and b: The sources) this is impossible to make at a decent speed :-(... Maybe we should restrict colour rounding to high colour systems only (All High-Colour systems, including QPC do have FPU support or they are sufficiently fast to perform this)... > >I'm trying to finish an article for QL Today for that.... > We're all waiting :-) > >Just a couple of questions here: >1 - Does "button" mean the buttons in the button frame, or also >(other) loose items? > I call a button every "loose" item. My 2 (euro) cents (pennies) regarding WMAN/PE in general. With the major updates that happened to the PE, using a different Window Manager should become redundant I would think.... It would be a good idea on restructuring it a bit (without losing compatibility) to accept "add-ons"... Since the PE in general provides a good enough (and known enough most important) framework a new gui (for which I strive for so long) will be a lot easier to construct. AFAIK, attaching bitmaps (ie skins) and high-colour (or should I say multi-colour) icons (sprites) is already possible so by polishing it up a bit every one could build his own window manager in a sense... As for my GuiDemo (Norman, Wolfgang and others have seen it so far), once I started using FPU-Presence benefiting instructions the whole thing is flying! (and on high-resolution, high-colour as well). Even interpreted S*Basic is burning rubber... (Generated some 50000 Hi colour, 3D shaded Windows in about 15 minutes which is NOT BAD at all)... (Regular speed without FPU is about 20000 windows on a Q40) Now if mine can do this, imagine how fast the really optimised (and written in assembly) PE can go.... Phoebus
