Using Graphics in Components - Overview

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Windows provides a powerful graphics device interface (GDI) for drawing device-independent graphics. The GDI, however, imposes extra requirements on the programmer, such as managing graphic resources. Delphi takes care of all the GDI drudgery, allowing you to focus on productive work instead of searching for lost handles or unreleased resources.

As with any part of the Windows API, you can call GDI functions directly from your Delphi application. But you will probably find that using Delphi's encapsulation of the graphic functions is faster and easier.

The topics in this section include:

• Overview of Graphics
• Using the Canvas
• Working with Pictures
• Off-screen Bitmaps
• Responding to Changes