Double buffering?

[BlackByte]

I've asked this question before, and so have many before me, i have done extensive research on the topic and stil no help. Maybe this is some kind of secret info. shared only amongst top programmers. Bt how do you really, trully double buffer a form, aside from setting "Double Bufferd" to true, which doesn't work in most cases, I want to know how do companies lyk Microsoft and Symantec, prevent flashes on big applications such Word and Norton, if someone has a good answer please reply..

 

[JohnH]

Usually the trick is good graphics management, if you do manual graphics operations invalidate only the areas that have changes. Large background images in forms is usually a bad idea, little can be done with this except the plain doublebuffer, which means anytime something causes the whole form to repaint the impact will be great and very noticable. Lots of controls or too much data loaded in them also makes a mess and means a lot more painting operations need to be done each time the form repaints. There are probably other ideas, but this was the first that came to mind.

 

[BlackByte]

Usually the trick is good graphics management

Thank you for replying John H
I get your point about good graphics management, but I use a lot of applications that use a lot of graphics, but still don't flicker. Or coud it be that it is possible to completely prevent flickers on a form with intensive grapics, but just not in VB.Net, well that I will never know. But I have decided to just decrease the number of controls that are used by my form to the absolute minimum.

 

[JohnH]

Or coud it be that it is possible to completely prevent flickers on a form with intensive grapics, but just not in VB.Net, well that I will never know.

VB has nothing to do with it, VB uses the same .Net engine and same precompiled IL code as any other .Net language. After it is compiled there is no VB, C# or C++ anymore. It differs from unmanaged code however, but usually for the better.

But I have decided to just decrease the number of controls that are used by my form to the absolute minimum.

If you observe any "professional" app with this in mind I think you will be surprised just how conservative the controls usage is, and how fast you get a "unprofessional" feeling from crowded forms.

 

[BlackByte]

Thanks for the info. John H, i will keep that in mind next time i'm making an application. I have managed to minimize the number of controls in my application, and it now works a looks fine, "without the flickers". By the way i'm actually building my first Cash Register Application, i'm hoping to sell it to the local small corner shops in my area.