I'm looking for a little advice in the following:

1) If I have a 640 x 480 image box and I want to construct the various
contents off screen then put it into the image box, what would be the most
sensible approach to a) off screen buffer management? [bitblt the partial
images onto the buffer and then picture.render?] and b) mouse management?
use controls to take mouse data or work only with mouse move and no extra
controls, handling the different mouse situations [equivalent to gotFocus
and lostFocus] within the one mouseMove event function?

2) The idea of running lots of forms for the various screens presented in a
multimedia product seems quite daunting (imagine some mm productions have
hundreds of different screens), and so I am considering reducing such a
presentation to what happens in the one picture box and working with lots
of overlayed bitmaps. Does this seem reasonable? If there are better ideas,
please speak up!

3) I want to maintain a window that has a viewing area of 640 x 480, and
fill the rest of the screen with black. I've considered 1) running a form
in a form, the "main" form supplying the maximized capability and the black
background, the "client" form (I attach it as a child to the main form) is
where all the action is; and 2) using a picture box as where everything
happens (ie in place of the "client" form above). If anyone has had any
experience with presenting multimedia in VB I'd like to here their
approach. (I can't imagine using a lot of different forms as a solution.)

Ian

to point 3)

to make a main window & put a child in it might use much memory (I don't know
the capability you want to make the prog for).

take a form, size it to the screen (set not title, no min-max-buttons, no
system-menu box and borderstyle = 0) and place a picturebox in it with your
640&480 size. Because VB uses a Thunder Box internally, you can use it as a
single window, you can place controls in it & so on.

Another trick is, that you can use pictureboxes of other forms & set via APi
the Child of the WindowLong / WindowsWord (Works form win 3.11 up to Win 98) &
use this picture on the form. It works cool, you can use the routines & events
from anopther form on that picture box, event when it is displayed in another
form. This is for those who are fit in WindowsAPI. If you want more information
about this, send my a note (e-mail below)

I didn't undersand you in using the term multimedia. For more information
please say clearlier what you want. Bye, dis is mot of intek vr.