Hello everyone, so I am reading through the DCS7 guide and there are several commands that reference updating the graph buffer and/or the LCD. What is the difference between the two? Also, what is the difference between "---_UpdateLCD" options 0 and 1? Thanks!

The graph buffer is an image of the screen that is kept in RAM. When the LCD is updated, the graph buffer is copied into the screen. For instance, when drawing something using TI-OS, it first draws on the graph buffer and then copies the graph buffer to the LCD. You can increase the speed of your program by only updating the LCD once you've drawn everything you want to draw to the graph buffer instead of updating it after every draw command.

Another question: I am just trying to draw rectangles on the screen to play around with the functions of DCSE8.

Code:

This draws a 5x5, filled rectangle of color X at (10X,20). But when I run it, the TIOS Header splits in half and the rectangles are drawn on the opposite sides of the screen. 1) How do I fix so that the rectangles are drawn one right after the other, and 2) How can I get rid of the of the TIOS Header? ("Normal Float Auto...").
I know I must be doing something wrong.

First of all, you should be aware that Doors CS 7 and Doors CSE 8 graphics work very different ways. In Doors CS 7, you draw graphics to a graph buffer, then call UpdateLCD to copy that buffer to the actual LCD. With Doors CSE 8 on the color LCD, xLIBC divides the LCD GRAM (memory) into two halves, only one of which is shown at a time (which is why the LCD goes into a lower-resolution mode). When you draw, you're drawing to the offscreen half of the LCD. Whenever you call an xLIBC drawing command with the updateLCD flag set, the library swaps the offscreen half of the GRAM onto the screen and the onscreen half of the GRAM off of the screen. There's more information about this process in the Doors CSE 8 SDK PDF.

I've read the PDF, but it still doesn't make sense. How can I fix this code so that it is displayed in the way that I had intended with a white background and no run-indicator? How can a draw a square and circle without it being squished?

Try taking a look at the sample program in the xLIBC tutorial here and see if it helps a bit:

http://dcs.cemetech.net/index.php/XLIBC_Tutorial