[SDL] Multiple SDL Windows?

[David Olofson]

On Sunday 25 March 2001 23:18, Anoq of the Sun wrote:
> David Olofson wrote:
> > Well, the separate process method would work for me as well,
> > although I'd have to implement the child-window-on-SDL-surface
> > thing myself, clipping included, meaning that I'd have to use a
> > different API when rendering in a child window. No big deal, but
> > I think it's quite wasteful if people have to reinvent the wheel
> > over and over again to do this kind of stuff, when it would fit
> > nicely into the new SDL API.
>
> Just came to think of it - I think it would currently
> be possible to allocate an SDL_Surface structure
> and initialize it with proper width, height, pitch,
> pixels pointer, cliprects etc. so that it really
> works as a sub-rectangle on a bigger SDL_Surface -
> even with correct coordinate system etc. :)

Yeah, that's exactly how I intend it to be done, at least in the case 
when you don't require the surface to be readable in aconsistent way. 
(See previous post with API "proposal".)


> The "only" thing which would not (currently) be
> possible is writing to a rectangle with other
> rectangles overlapping it.
>
> That's what would be possible with your
> approach... I don't know - maybe you're
> right that this should be supported natively.
> And it's still a simple kind of abstraction -
> which both X and Win32 (and possibly also most
> other Windoing systems) uses natively too...

Right; and if complex clipping is going in anyway, there shouldn't be 
much glue needed between that and the sub surfaces to turn the latter 
into real windows.

(Note: We're not talking about windows with decorations and crap; 
just plain rectangular drawing areas, like raw X windows or Win32 
drawing contexts.)


//David

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