This class is a tool for optimized drawing with TQPixmap. You can use it to store temporary pixmaps that are expensive to generate without using more storage space than cacheLimit(). Use insert() to insert pixmaps, find() to find them and clear() to empty the cache.
For example, TQRadioButton has a non-trivial visual representation so we don't want to regenerate a pixmap whenever a radio button is displayed or changes state. In the function TQRadioButton::drawButton(), we do not draw the radio button directly. Instead, we first check the global pixmap cache for a pixmap with the key "$qt_radio_nnn_", where \fCnnn\fR is a numerical value that specifies the the radio button state. If a pixmap is found, we bitBlt() it onto the widget and return. Otherwise, we create a new pixmap, draw the radio button in the pixmap, and finally insert the pixmap in the global pixmap cache, using the key above. The bitBlt() is ten times faster than drawing the radio button. All radio buttons in the program share the cached pixmap since TQPixmapCache is application-global.
TQPixmapCache contains no member data, only static functions to access the global pixmap cache. It creates an internal TQCache for caching the pixmaps.
The cache associates a pixmap with a string (key). If two pixmaps are inserted into the cache using equal keys, then the last pixmap will hide the first pixmap. The TQDict and TQCache classes do exactly the same.
The cache becomes full when the total size of all pixmaps in the cache exceeds cacheLimit(). The initial cache limit is 1024 KByte (1 MByte); it is changed with setCacheLimit(). A pixmap takes roughly width*height*depth/8 bytes of memory.
\fBWarning:\fR If valid, you should copy the pixmap immediately (this is fast). Subsequent insertions into the cache could cause the pointer to become invalid. For this reason, we recommend you use find(const TQString&, TQPixmap&) instead.
This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It behaves essentially like the above function.
.PP
Looks for a cached pixmap associated with the \fIkey\fR in the cache. If a pixmap is found, the function sets \fIpm\fR to that pixmap and returns TRUE; otherwise leaves \fIpm\fR alone and returns FALSE.
If this function returns TRUE, do not use \fIpm\fR afterwards or keep references to it because any other insertions into the cache, whether from anywhere in the application or within TQt itself, could cause the pixmap to be discarded from the cache and the pointer to become invalid.
