Scrolls from the Past: Safe Areas
This fine day, we will look back at a subject that, while simple, spawned many heated discussions between XNA apprentices: Safe Areas.
It all began years ago, when XNA was still freshly and incompletely summoned into this world. People realized that now that they could let their creations loose in the alternate reality plane of the Xbox. But there was a problem. While normal creations in the PC-land could be watched through a perfectly clear portal, looking into Xbox-land was often done through rounded looking-glasses, that made distortions at the edges. Because of this, apprentices had to take care to keep the most interesting and attractive parts of their masterpieces in the center of the looking-glass.
Manders, one of the high-wizards of DirectX-guild, was playing around with XNA, and he decided to help others out, by making a catalyst potion (helper class) that apprentices could use to see how much the edges of rounded looking glasses could affect them.
As I am writing these lines, I realized in almost fell in the same trap as others have before me... The distortion at the edges of round looking-glasses also happens in newly crafted modern flat looking-glasses made from LCD or plasma materials. Keep that in mind always.
After a long time has passed, the arch-mages decided that the Third Incarnation of XNA should offer something to help with all the calculations that needed to be done for proper mirror-edge-distortion support. This was done by adding the minor enhancemet TitleSafeArea to the Viewport and DisplayMode spell components. And to make sure everyone understand how to use this, they filled the land with a free sample recipe.
Other apprentices did not give up the struggle against edge distortions, and proposed alternate means of avoiding distortions, through the Options and Zooming spells. A great debate followed, obviously, with no side giving up on their opinions. The subject reappears again later, and you can see the opinions of several chroniclers here. Also, if at any one time you think that the restrictions imposed by edge-distortion is too high, think again, because not all mirrors are created equally.
In the end, I will let you study the writing of one of our favorite chronicler of XNA-history. Here, he talks about edge-distortions, and other problems that are closely intertwined with it. He then goes to recommend you to stick blue foreign substances on you mirrors, to help out.... strange....
