Legacy Document

Inside Macintosh: Imaging With QuickDraw /

Chapter 3 - QuickDraw Drawing / QuickDraw Drawing Reference

Routines

Drawing With the Eight-Color System

On a color screen, you can draw using eight predefined colors, even when you are using a basic graphics port. Although basic QuickDraw graphics routines were designed for black-and-white drawing, they also include rudimentary color capabilities. Because Color QuickDraw also supports this system, it is compatible across all Macintosh platforms. (This section describes the rudimentary color routines included in basic QuickDraw. See the next chapter, "Color QuickDraw," for information about more sophisticated color use in your application.)

A pair of fields in a GrafPort record, fgColor and bkColor, specify a foreground and background color. The foreground color is the color of the "ink" used to frame, fill, and paint. By default, the foreground color is black. The background color is the color of the pixels in the bitmap wherever no drawing has taken place. By default, the background color is white. However, you can use the ForeColor and BackColor procedures to change these fields. When printing, however, use the ColorBit procedure to set the foreground color.

In System 7, these Color QuickDraw routines are available to basic QuickDraw: RGBForeColor, RGBBackColor, GetForeColor, and GetBackColor. Described in the next chapter, "Color QuickDraw," these routines can also assist you in manipulating the eight-color system of basic QuickDraw.

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Subtopics

ForeColor

BackColor

ColorBit