I am working on my Font Creator application using C++ and the Win32 API. The program can load a bitmap onto the main window. This bitmap is going to have all the characters on it. Eventually, I am going to write my own .font file format, containing the length, width, and pixels of each character in the font. What I am trying to do now is when the user clicks on the bitmap, drags, and releases the mouse, I want to draw a blue box with a top left of where the mouse was pressed down, and a bottom right of where the mouse was released. I want it to actually be re-drawn as the mouse is dragged. I know it has to be somehow done on the WM_LBUTTONDOWN, WM_LBUTTONUP, and probably WM_MOUSEMOVE. I am planning on using the Rectange() function? The problem is that inside the rectangle clears to white, and the bitmap needs to show. What I can think of is maybe storing the pixels from the bitmap, and keep redrawing it while the rectangle is being dragged. This seems like it would lagg the crap out of the computer though. Any ideas? Thank you, -Dev578 [Edited by - dev578 on October 8, 2005 7:08:42 PM]

In order to get the mouse coords under Win32, when one of the mouse messages takes place do:

GetCursorPos(&Pnt);
ScreenToClient(hWnd,&Pnt);

Where Pnt is a Point type and hWnd is a HWND type.

As for the GDI stuff I really don't know how you'd do all that. For my app I'm just using SetPixel to draw 256x256 images. I would suggest if you're doing a lot of rendering to use SDL, OpenGL, D3D, etc.. as GDI is way to slow for must things.

I know how to get the mousecoords. They are stored in the lParam parameter when the WM_LBUTTONDOWN or WM_LBUTTONUP messages occur. This can get me my coordinates for the rectangle. What I am still trying to figure out though, is how to make the rectangle over the bitmap. I also think it would be nice to actually show the rectangle being drawn as the user is dragging the mouse. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you,



-Dev578

Well if you just drew it to the window then when the bitmap gets updated it'll draw over the rectangle. What you would need to do is store the rectangle information and then when WM_PAINT is called, redraw the window then the bitmap and redraw the rectangle last.

I know how to handle WM_PAINT. If I were to draw the rectangle after I draw the bitmap, like you say, the same problem is still there. All the tutorials I have been able to find draw shapes by using a pen for a border, and then using a brush to fill in the area enclosed by the pen. If you just use a pen to create the outline of a rectangle, the area enclosed by the pen is white. I need that white area to be filled with the pixels of the bitmap that got drawn over. I want to do much like the windows desktop, when you click and drag that box comes up. In the middle of the box is the desktop, and icons, etc, NOT SOLID WHITE SPACE. The windows desktop is playing the role of my loaded bitmap. Am I being clear in explaining my situation? If anyone could help me, that would be excellent. In the meantime, I will continue to search, but I'm not finding any answers. Any help is appreciated.

Thank you,



-Dev578

You want FrameRect() not Rectangle()

Quote:Original post by Scet
For my app I'm just using SetPixel to draw 256x256 images.

You need to look at the function BitBlt. Calling SetPixel is a terrible way to render a bitmap.

Thank you all very much:) I appreciate it. Mike, that was extremely helpful, Rating++.

[Edited by - dev578 on October 9, 2005 7:09:00 AM]