[comp.sys.mac] Help requested with offscreen bitmaps

seth@CS.UCLA.EDU (12/18/87)

Well it's time for another naive mac programming question.  I'm trying to do
following:

Set up two offscreen bitmaps A and B.  Do all my drawing on A and B
(rectangles, lines, and text) and then bitblt from A and B onto the
window I've created on the screen W.  I want the images in A and B to
persist so that if W gets messed up I can update it just by blitting
from A and B.  I'm using Allegro CommonLisp but have access to the
entire toolbox as needed.  I'm confused about whether A and B can
just be bitmaps or need to be full-fledged grafports in their own
right.  I've checked IM and it talks about using SetPortBits to draw
to offscreen bitmaps and then using CopyBits to update the screen
but I can't figure it out and there are no examples.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could take a little time and
explain it to me.  I have various versions of my code which behave
strangely but the one where I thought I had it right resulting in nothing
being drawn.  How do I create a real offscreen bitmap?  What are the
bounds for that bitmap (i.e. off the screen?).  What is the portrect
if the offscreen bitmap needs to be a grafport?

Thanks,

						Seth Goldman

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