Hieroglyph 3: ViewFromTheWindow

After making some significant updates to the way that I manage my window classes, I put together a demo program that I have been thinking about for a while. I've called it the 'ViewFromTheWindow' and it is available in the Hieroglyph 3 SVN repository on codeplex.

As you can see in the image below, the name was chosen because each of the application's windows provide a view of the scene that appears to be located behind the desktop:



The basic concept is that the application creates multiple windows placed randomly around the desktop, with a random width and height as well. The application then renders the scene to an offscreen buffer that has a resolution that matches the current desktop. Then, depending on the screen space coordinates of the client area of each window, I copy the appropriate area of the offscreen buffer to the window's client area. This has the effect that you can move windows around to see the various parts of the scene that aren't currently visible [grin].

Because of this demo, I've decided to reference the window's client area whenever I set or get the position and width as opposed to the window's outer boundary. From a rendering standpoint, you really are only interested in the client area anyways, so I modified the 'RenderWindow' class accordingly.

I've also managed to get a good start on the documentation for the library as well, so I've been making good progress lately. Now it's on to the next demo...