Program Structure

Overview

This information is sourced from the Picotron Manual

This goes over the structure of Picotron Cartridges.

Optional functions for the cart-loop

A Picotron program can optionally provide 3 functions:

function _init()
-- called once just before the main loop
end

function _update()
-- called 60 times per second
end

function _draw()
-- called each time the window manager asks for a frame
-- (normally 60, 30 or 20 times per second)
end

Running Programs in the background

A program that only contains _update (but no _draw) will continue to run in the background by default, but with a lower cpu priority.

When _draw is also defined (and the program has a window or fullscreen display), the _draw and _update functions are only called when the program is at least partially visible. This allows Picotron to keep many tabs and workspaces open without impacting performance. In this case, the _update and/or _draw functions can be manually set to run in the background with:

window{background_updates = true}

or:

window{background_draws=true}

respectively.