Director FAQ [5] Director Basics [5.4] Whats the difference between Tools palette and Paint window objects?
Rectangles, ovals and text that you create in the Paint window are stored as bitmaps: an array of pixels, each your chosen colour. The same objects created with the Tools palette are stored as descriptions: eg an oval of a particular size and colour. Both methods have different advantages. Bitmaps (at least for 1-bit images), are quick to draw to the screen, but they take up more memory and don’t scale well. If you want to have them at several different sizes you have to create several different cast members, or else put up with badly pixellated (jagged) sprites. Tools palette objects, on the other hand, can be slower, because the computer has to work out how to draw them properly each time. But because they are based on an abstract description, they can be scaled easily and always appear smooth (as smooth as possible, anyway). In most cases they also take up much less space in the cast, because only a brief specification needs to be kept, not a pixel-by-pixel copy. Tools palette objec
