Creating a Picture Programmatically

General
1

Yes, this is an extension of my previous colorization question.

I want to create a blank picture object, draw into it, and display it in a canvas. I want to do this to make zooming, scrolling, and saving easier. But, here, my lack of OOP understanding really hits me in the face.

If I add a picture object, which I name MyPic, into the window’s property list (by dragging from the library pane), then try to reference it in the Window’s Open Event, I get a nil object exception. If I try to “new” it or set its width (as in MyPic.width = 2000), I get a “naughty boy, cannot do that” alert. I can create a local picture in the window open event and assign it to the canvas.backdrop but that does now allow scrolling.

I seem to be missing something critical, here. I have been trying to follow the canvas zoom and canvas scroll examples but those are for an existing picture. I am at a loss to deal with a picture that I have created on the fly.

Some hints would really be appreciated.

As a side note, when I try to open those examples in the current Xojo release, many of the properties are highlighted in red. I assume that these represent things that have changed since the example is created. But, I have no idea what to do about them (some are ordinary integers and would not seem to be candidate for update).

Thanks

Jim Wagner
Oregon Research Electronics

2

Create a property of type Picture. It will initially be nil. Assign a picture object to it via New Picture(Width, Height, Depth).

thePicture = New Picture(1000, 3000, 32)

There is, of course, a practical limit to the size of the picture. But that should get you started.

3

Thought I tried that but will do it again. I think I had problems when it was a window property, rather than a local (to the Open Event). But, will try again.

Thanks
Jim

4

You can’t do it if you dragged it into the project, but there shouldn’t be any problem with it being a window property. You will have problems if you make it local to the event, however.

5

Finally got it. I looks just like I THOUGHT I did however,I had copied that code block from one of the examples and may have forgotten to remove the declare from the line.

Thanks for the nudge,
Jim