Microsoft KB Archive/72387

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HOWTO: How to Determine If a Device Is Palette Capable

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Q72387

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) 3.1
 * Microsoft Win32 Application Programming Interface (API), used with:
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0

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SUMMARY
On a device that supports the Windows palette management function, an application can create a logical palette, select the palette into a Device Context (DC), and realize the palette, which maps its colors into the system (hardware) palette. The GetDeviceCaps API informs an application whether a given device is capable of performing palette manipulation and, if so, the size of the palette. This article discusses the GetDeviceCaps API and how it is used.

MORE INFORMATION
To determine whether a device can perform palette operations, call the GetDeviceCaps API with the RASTERCAPS parameter. If the RC_PALETTE bit of the return is set, the device supports the palette management functions.

To determine how many colors in the system palette are available for the application to use, the following parameters can be used in a GetDeviceCaps call:

  Parameter      Description -     ---   SIZEPALETTE    Total number of entries in the system palette NUMRESERVED   Number of reserved (static) colors in the system palette This functionality is demonstrated in the MyPal sample code that is included on the Windows version 3.x Software Development Kit (SDK) Source Code 2 disk. For a demonstration, start MyPal and click the right mouse button.

The reserved colors are entries in the system palette that are used by Windows and cannot be changed by an application [except by using SetSystemPaletteUse, which is not recommended]. The reserved colors are used for the following purposes:

  Active border Active caption Background color MDI applications Desktop background color Push button faces Push button edges Push button text Caption text Disabled (gray) text Highlight color in controls (to highlight items in the control) Highlight text color Inactive border Inactive caption Inactive caption text (new to Windows version 3.1) Menu background Menu text Scroll-bar gray area Window background Window frame Window text Additional query words: 3.00 3.10 3.50 4.00 win16sdk

Keywords : kbOSWinNT350 kbOSWinNT351 kbOSWinNT400 kbOSWin95 kbSDKWin16

Issue type : kbhowto

Technology : kbAudDeveloper kbSDKSearch kbWin32sSearch kbWin32API kbWinSDKSearch