dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (06/20/86)
I have been fooling around with custom screens... seeing how big a screen I could create within the confines of my monitor. I had one big disappointment: It would seem that you can't move the mouse past the logical right border of the screen (640) or below the logical bottom border (200), even when your screen is 660 x 230 (or something similar). I'm talking about the created screen (OpenScreen()), NOT the physical monitor. It seems logical to me, and completely compatible with everything that exists so far. There are also advantages to having 'defaults' for window max width/height (etc.... make it '-1'), so one doesn't need to worry whether he's on a PAL amiga, or U.S. amiga, and to allow those of us who will soon be getting hi-grade monitors. I realize that many of you are probably intending to flame me on this message (along the lines that if people start writing programs with larger screens, things may become incompatible), so I would like to point out that everything I have mentioned so far would make nothing incompatible. Take the scenerio of the standard applications program with resizable windows. The programmer simply uses '-1' to specify the 'default' width, height, etc.... and the program immediately satisfies everybody from the simple user (w/normal screen), to the sophisticated hacker who has connected up a 704x262 monitor and changed those defaults to match. Since most applications programs must dynamically allow for any size window/screen, it would not be any harder in terms of programming. Of course, some programs, such as games would probably have absolute unsizable screens, but that's ok by me.... the slightly larger screen area would not normally make a game more playable, and not all the sprites work with larger display areas anyway. but for something like word-processing, I would be a lot happier with an 85 col x 28 row NON-INTERLACE window (including all the gadgets) Q: Is it possible to re-open the workbench screen with a larger display area?? -Matt
jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (06/22/86)
In article <8606200620.AA20419@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > I have been fooling around with custom screens... seeing how big a >screen I could create within the confines of my monitor. I had one big >disappointment: It would seem that you can't move the mouse past the >logical right border of the screen (640) or below the logical bottom border >(200), even when your screen is 660 x 230 (or something similar). I'm >talking about the created screen (OpenScreen()), NOT the physical monitor. >It seems logical to me, and completely compatible with everything that exists >so far. There is indeed validity to this. The mouse limits and limitations on what we have been calling "overscan" could enjoy enhancement. > There are also advantages to having 'defaults' for window max >width/height (etc.... make it '-1'), so one doesn't need to worry whether >he's on a PAL amiga, or U.S. amiga, and to allow those of us who will soon >be getting hi-grade monitors. But Wait. We have addressed this problem in 1.2. In fact it works just like you say. We also provide GetScreenData() so you can find out, for example, how big the workbench screen is, how thick its title bar is, and properly open a window which covers the whole screen except for the title bar. > I realize that many of you are probably intending to flame me on >this message (along the lines that if people start writing programs with >larger screens, things may become incompatible), so I would like to point >out that everything I have mentioned so far would make nothing incompatible. > >Take the scenerio of the standard applications program with resizable >windows. The programmer simply uses '-1' to specify the 'default' >width, height, etc.... and the program immediately satisfies everybody from >the simple user (w/normal screen), to the sophisticated hacker who has >connected up a 704x262 monitor and changed those defaults to match. Since >most applications programs must dynamically allow for any size window/screen, >it would not be any harder in terms of programming. You have to make the applications support this kind of behavior. To get a program to work correctly on PAL and NTSC (256 vs 200 lines), those programs which allocate their own memory for screens or super bitmaps must know the actual dimensions of the screens/windows they are opening. >Of course, some programs, such as games would probably have absolute unsizable >screens, but that's ok by me.... the slightly larger screen area would not >normally make a game more playable, and not all the sprites work with larger >display areas anyway. but for something like word-processing, I would >be a lot happier with an 85 col x 28 row NON-INTERLACE window (including >all the gadgets) > >Q: Is it possible to re-open the workbench screen with a larger display >area?? Yes. Without powering off your machine, slap in a PAL agnus. (Just kidding. It's only a joke. Don't try this at home.) The only way to do this would be to mess with secret hidden values describing the display dimensions. There are numbers in both IntuitionBase and GfxBase which determine this. Find them yourself. The mouse may behave strangely. No one has ever done this. If you find out how, we will probably move and encrypt them. :-) No fair asking jgoodnow for help disassembling Intuition. jimm (now on BIX: jmackraz)