Fastgraph for Windows Programming Philosophy

Fastgraph for Windows operates on off-screen drawing surfaces called virtual buffers. After setting up one or more virtual buffers, a program uses Fastgraph functions to build images or animation frames in a virtual buffer. It makes the image visible by copying or "blitting" all or part of the virtual buffer contents to the window's client area when needed.

A Fastgraph program will typically use a combination of Fastgraph functions and Windows API functions (a visual development tool, or an application framework such as MFC, might be used instead of calling the Windows API functions directly). A program calls Windows API functions for such things as creating windows, controlling the message loop, creating and managing menus and dialog boxes -- tasks Windows handles very well. It calls Fastgraph functions for such things as setting up virtual buffers and logical palettes, writing to the virtual buffers, displaying image files and bitmaps, managing animation, performing color mapping and reduction, and blitting virtual buffers to the window's client area -- tasks that are better suited to Fastgraph.