Re: [pygame] broken links, event handling vs "getting directly" and screen refresh

[Pete Shinners <shredwheat@mediaone.net>]

Dan Stromberg wrote:
> 1) All the "Tutorial/Introduction" links on the documentation page
> (http://pygame.org/docs/index.html) are broken.

yeah, whoops. this has been fixed.



> 2) In http://pygame.org/docs/tut/newbieguide.html, it says that using
> the event system isn't always the best way to go.  In my case, it's ok
> if I miss a mouse click once in a while, but I don't want latency
> creeping in, so I initially decided to avoid the event system.  However,
> I'm noticing that if I obscure my game window with another briefly, I
> don't get window refresh until I redraw the whole window.  Would this
> problem be easier to solve if I were using the event system?  That is,
> is there a "time to redraw the whole screen now" event?

it sounds like you've got the right idea for your situation. in games 
that don't use the event system, there is still one function you will 
need from the event module.

pygame.event.pump()
http://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/pygame_event.html#pump

this function doesn't return anything, but it does allow pygame a chance 
to talk with the window manager and environment. it does things like 
make sure input devices (like joysticks) are up to date, but doesn't 
generate any events for them.

and here's the good news for you...
one important thing that happens in this call, pygame finds out if the 
window needs to be repainted in any areas. if so, it automatically 
remembers what should be drawn there and does the repainting for you.

usually you just call the pygame.event.pump() function once per frame,
this should take care of business for you. on some platforms it is more 
important to call the pump(), since it handles a bit more coordination 
with the system (besides just redraws).

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