PCOPY a magician of video pages!

[TempodiBasic]

Hi Guys and Gals
my knowledge of QB64 goes on! Each day and each moment is a good source of knowledge.
Reading this thread my attention falls on the use of SCREENhttps://www.qb64.org/wiki/SCREEN and of PCOPYhttps://www.qb64.org/wiki/index.php/PCOPY.
Well what's about the last one?
I remember in QB45 that you can use PCOPY only for being video pages, so the number that you can use is depending from the SCREEN mode set in the code. A different value activates an error.

In QB64 PCOPY has got a special feature: when you use PCOPY with QB64 screen mode (32bit color) you can specify  any digit as name of a screen video page to use as canvas. It's a magic feature because you needn't create a _NEWIMAGE with the same dimensions and attribute (32bit color), PCOPY does it by itself.
What is bad? Only the wiki documentation that shows this feature in a demonstration code, but no words into the help.
Here wiki example 1 that shows this feature of PCOPY

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. SCREEN _NEWIMAGE(640, 480, 32) 'any graphics mode should work without setting up pages
2. _MOUSEHIDE
3. SetupCursor
4. PRINT "Hello World!"
5. DO: _LIMIT 30
6.   DO WHILE _MOUSEINPUT: LOOP 'main loop must contain _MOUSEINPUT  
7. '       other program code    
8. LOOP
9.  
10. SUB SetupCursor
11. ON TIMER(0.02) UpdateCursor
12. TIMER ON
13. END SUB
14.  
15. SUB UpdateCursor
16. PCOPY _DISPLAY, 100  'any page number as desination with the _DISPLAY function as source
17. PSET (_MOUSEX, _MOUSEY), _RGB(0, 255, 0)
18. DRAW "ND10F10L3F5L4H5L3"
19. _DISPLAY                  'statement shows image
20. PCOPY 100, _DISPLAY 'function return as destination page
21. END SUB  

as you can see with my little mod
it needn't _DISPLAY , and you can copy among as many as you want (under the limit of RAM avaiable on the machine) screen video pages with no effort of declaring it before to use.

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. SCREEN _NEWIMAGE(640, 480, 32) 'any graphics mode should work without setting up pages
2. _MOUSEHIDE
3. SetupCursor
4. PRINT "Hello World!"
5. DO: _LIMIT 30
6.     DO WHILE _MOUSEINPUT: LOOP 'main loop must contain _MOUSEINPUT
7.     '       other program code
8. LOOP
9.  
10. SUB SetupCursor
11.     ON TIMER(0.02) UpdateCursor
12.     TIMER ON
13. END SUB
14.  
15. SUB UpdateCursor
16.     PCOPY 0, 100 ' _DISPLAY, 100 'any page number as desination with the _DISPLAY function as source
17.     PSET (_MOUSEX, _MOUSEY), _RGB(0, 255, 0)
18.     DRAW "ND10F10L3F5L4H5L3"
19.     _DISPLAY 'statement shows image
20.     PCOPY 100, 20
21.     PCOPY 20, _DISPLAY 'function return as destination page
22. END SUB
23.  

Moreover PCOPY uses dimensions of screen active
run this code to see

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. a& = _NEWIMAGE(640, 480, 32) 'any graphics mode should work without setting up pages
2. b& = _NEWIMAGE(200, 100, 32)
3. SCREEN a&
4.  
5. _DEST b&
6. PAINT (1, 1), _RGB32(50, 127, 222)
7. _DEST 0
8. PAINT (1, 1), _RGB32(150, 27, 22)
9. _MOUSEHIDE
10. SetupCursor
11. PRINT "Hello World!"
12. DO: _LIMIT 30
13.     DO WHILE _MOUSEINPUT: LOOP 'main loop must contain _MOUSEINPUT
14.     '       other program code
15.     IF _MOUSEBUTTON(1) THEN SCREEN b&
16.     IF _MOUSEBUTTON(2) THEN SCREEN a&
17. LOOP
18.  
19. SUB SetupCursor
20.     ON TIMER(0.02) UpdateCursor
21.     TIMER ON
22. END SUB
23.  
24. SUB UpdateCursor
25.     PCOPY 0, 100 ' _DISPLAY, 100 'any page number as desination with the _DISPLAY function as source
26.     PSET (_MOUSEX, _MOUSEY), _RGB(0, 255, 0)
27.     DRAW "ND10F10L3F5L4H5L3"
28.     _DISPLAY 'statement shows image
29.     PCOPY 100, 20
30.     PCOPY 20, _DISPLAY 'function return as destination page
31. END SUB
32.  

PS _SOURCE doesn't seem to affect PCOPY working

Good news added to my knowledge.

[Pete]

I'm working on a further addition, also for graphics users, called PeteCOPY. While PCOPY flips pages on, PeteCOPY flips them off. It also returns your program to SCREEN 0, the way God intended it.

I'm actually a big flipping fan of PCOPY. I use it extensively for popups. Here is a very simple example: https://www.qb64.org/forum/index.php?topic=3530.msg128559#msg128559

Nice to this added enhancement, you posted, in QB64.

Thanks for posting it,

Pete