Understanding Storage Options

Every handle of an ImageGear image (HIGEAR) contains a set of option groups. ImageGear does not impose any restrictions on the size of this set, i.e., on the number of option groups that are stored with any given HIGEAR. You do not need to allocate or de-allocate the storage space for the groups. You can, however, reset all group options to their default values.

Each option group has its own ID. This ID is a DWORD integer and is unique in the scope of a given HIGEAR; i.e., every pair {HIGEAR, DWORD} uniquely identifies an option group. The reason for introducing option groups and associating multiple groups with a single image handle is to provide a convenient means of drawing the same image on multiple devices. In this case, a separate option group may be allocated for each of the devices, and later used whenever the image is output to the corresponding device without the need to reassign options values.