Chapter 8. Live Graphics
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## Chapter 8. Live Graphics

GoGui can display graphical data on the Go board while a command is in progress. Live graphics commands are considered temporary information about what the program is currently thinking. For displaying permanent information, use the `gfx` analyze command type.

The Go program invokes live graphics commands by writing draw commands to its standard error stream. Every line that starts with `gogui-gfx:` is interpreted by GoGui as a draw command using the same syntax as in the `gfx` analyze command type (however, the merging of multiple TEXT draw commands to a multi-line text for display in a separate window is not performed). If no draw command follows immediately after `gogui-gfx:`, all following lines until the next empty line will be interpreted as draw commands. See the `dummy-live_gfx` command in gogui-dummy(1) for an example.

Before each set of draw commands, existing markup on the graphical board will be automatically cleared, but not the text in the status bar.

### Note

Since the parsing of the standard error stream stops when the command response is received, and Java does not allow to guarantee the correct order of standard error and response stream, there is a small chance that a live graphics command, which arrives shortly before the response, is handled during the next GTP command. You can avoid this situation by pausing for short amount of time after writing live graphics commands or by explicitly writing a `gogui-gfx: CLEAR` command to standard error before the command ends.

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