P

page coordinate-space:The second of four coordinate spaces used for all GDI drawing operations.

palette animation:A method of updating the colors in the logical palette.

partition:An entire fixed disk, or part of fixed disk, that is referenced as a separate volume. For example, a single fixed disk may be divided into two partitions, referred to as “C:” and “D:”, even though they exist on the same physical volume.

patch:A particular setup of a MIDI synthesizer that results in a particular sound, usually a sound simulating a specific musical instrument. Patches are also called programs. A MIDI program-change message changes the patch setting in a synthesizer. Patch also refers to the connection or connections between MIDI devices.

patch caching:Some internal MIDI synthesizer device drivers can preload, or cache, their patch data. Patch caching reduces the delay between the moment that the synthesizer receives a MIDI program-change message and when it plays a note using the new patch. Patch caching also ensures that required patches are available (the synthesizer might load only a subset of its patches).

path:A string that describes where a file or directory is located on a volume relative to the current directory or root directory.

pattern brush:A logical brush which was created from an application-defined bitmap.

pen:A drawing tool that is used to draw lines and curves.

pen style:One of the cosmetic- and geometric-pen attributes that defines the appearance of lines drawn with the pen. There are seven possible styles: solid, dashed, dotted, dashed and dotted, dash followed by two dots, invisible, inside-frame, and user-defined.

pen type:An identifier that specifies whether the pen's dimensions are specified in world or device units.

performance monitoring:Determining the system resources an application consumes, such as processor time and memory.

physical brush:An 8-pixel by 8-pixel bitmap that Windows uses to paint the interior of filled objects. A physical brush is a device driver s approximation of a logical brush.

physical characteristics of light:The three distinguishing characteristics of a light wave: its wavelength, its intensity, and its purity.

physical device:The fourth and final coordinate space for most GDI drawing operations. (The points in this coordinate space may correspond to the desktop, a client area, or a page of printer paper.)

physical palette:See system palette.

picture frame:A rectangle that defines the width and height of the picture that is stored in a metafile. (The dimensions of this rectangle are always specified in .01 mm units.)

pipe:A uni-directional or bi-directional conduit that allows use of the file I/O functions (for example, ReadFile or WriteFile) to transfer data between processes.

pitch scale factor:An application can request that a waveform audio driver scale the pitch by a specified factor. A scale factor of two results in a one-octave increase in pitch. Pitch scaling requires specialized hardware. The playback rate and sample rate are not changed.

pixel:The smallest definable unit on a video display. (A pixel's size is a function of video-display technology.)

playback rate scale factor:In waveform audio, an application can request that the waveform audio driver scale the playback rate by a specified factor. Playback scaling is accomplished through software; the sample rate is not changed, but the driver interpolates by skipping or synthesizing samples. For example, if the playback rate is changed by a factor of two, the driver skips every other sample.

playing a metafile:The process of converting the records in a metafile into respective device commands and drawing the corresponding picture on the device.

polygon fill-mode:An algorithm that determines the parts of a region that can be filled, painted, inverted, or clipped.

polygonal region:A region with the shape of a polygon.

pop-up item:A menu item that, when chosen, displays a pop-up menu.

pop-up menu:A menu that is hidden until the user performs an action that causes Windows to display the menu.

PPQN (Parts Per Quarter Note):A time format used for MIDI sequences. PPQN is the most common time format used with standard MIDI files.

preimaging:The process of building a movie frame in a memory buffer before it is displayed.

primary thread:The initial thread of a process. Also called the main thread or thread 1.

priority class:The priority of a process that provides the base point in determining the scheduling priorities of its threads.

process:An executing program that consists of a private virtual address space, code, data, and other system resources, such as files, pipes, and synchronization objects that are visible to the process, and one or more threads that execute in the context of the process. When a process is started, it has a single thread of execution, but additional threads can be created.