Screen with multiple viewports

[mr.spiv]

After my short interweb search I found few code examples doing multiple viewports for kinky view setups. However, those looked very much involved with manual view setups And my OS side foo is somewhat rusty so I need to take baby steps.
Is there a simple'ish way to open an intuition screen that has more than one viewport? I intend to play around with user defines copperlist, multiple _native_chipset_ resolutions in a single screen (if possible) and custom interleaved bitmaps... gradually. I also wonder how windows would work in such setup?
Obviously, some sample code would be great..

[Samurai_Crow]

Child screens do something like that if you're on Kick3+.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

I intend to play around with user defines copperlist, multiple _native_chipset_ resolutions in a single screen (if possible) and custom interleaved bitmaps... gradually.

Custom copperlists you can create with UCopperListInit(), CMOVE and CWAIT macros from the graphics.library; they need to be installed into the viewport of the screen, and a final MrgCop() is required to activate them. This is Os-friendly, and the copper list will also move with the screen.


Of course this will only work if there is a copper available, i.e. it will not work on an RTG screen.

[pipper]

Here’s an example of what can be done with an OS screen:

https://github.com/mheyer32/alienbre...rce/c/screen.c

The screen setup in there activates a custom copperlist that repeats every second line (to shrink the games vertical resolution) while keeping the lower part of the HUD intact.

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by pipper

url]https://github.com/mheyer32/alienbreed3d2/blob/main/ab3d2_source/c/screen.c[/url]

Thanks! This was great and I'll study it in detail.

Interestingly, I just found some of my old codes done in early -90s for displaying race competitors' number & time based on the start/stop information received over serial (used for results broadcasting in some Enduro race whatever..) and to my surprise the program used OS for screen and copper.. even used serial.device for communications Very(!) not typical for my codings

What still remains a puzzle is if I can do "split screen" using Intuition Screens e.g. upper part of the screen in hires & lower part in lores and both using separate custom bitmaps. I shall hack & try, since I believe it is doable.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

What still remains a puzzle is if I can do "split screen" using Intuition Screens e.g. upper part of the screen in hires & lower part in lores and both using separate custom bitmaps. I shall hack & try, since I believe it is doable.

You need to use child screens for that - these are essentially "two screens for the price of one". The two screens slide together, but have different viewports and different rastports (necessarily, as their characteristics are different).

[mr.spiv]

I have been on this a bit again.. The next thing is simple sprites. Is it possible to take over sprite0 (pointer) when using intuition screens? I experimented with FreeSprite(), GetSprite() and ChangeSprite() but that seems not to be the right approach.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

I have been on this a bit again.. The next thing is simple sprites. Is it possible to take over sprite0 (pointer) when using intuition screens? I experimented with FreeSprite(), GetSprite() and ChangeSprite() but that seems not to be the right approach.

Not possible in intuition.

[mr.spiv]

Some experiments later.. intentionally leaking (ahem!) copperlists to lower viewports is a nice thing (tm).
Question about dynamic copperlists. Say, if I want to modify values in a UCopList prepared with CINIT/CWAIT/CMOVE/CEND macros, how is that done without creating a modified list from scratch? Or am I bound to free the old UCopList and then create a new one with modified content?

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

Question about dynamic copperlists. Say, if I want to modify values in a UCopList prepared with CINIT/CWAIT/CMOVE/CEND macros, how is that done without creating a modified list from scratch? Or am I bound to free the old UCopList and then create a new one with modified content?

My current code does

..create a new update user copperlist..
FreeVPortCopLists()
...
MakeScreen()
...
..apply a new user copperlist..
RethinkDisplay()

This works but is there "more efficient way"?