Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Modeless dialogs, what am I doing wrong?
Message-ID: <8086@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 21 Jul 89 00:47:05 GMT
References: <1484@ndmath.UUCP> <14455@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <8029@hoptoad.uucp> <14490@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <8070@hoptoad.uucp> <14522@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 37

In article <14522@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu
(Earle R. Horton) writes:
>     Hmm, that's not bad.  It doesn't give the effect I was trying to
>describe, however.  I consider the "active" editText item to be that
>item with the insertion point or active selection range in it.  The
>idea is to use the iBeamCursor only when the cursor is over this item,
>and not over other, non-selected editText items.

I don't think this is desirable, but I can't really prove one way or
the other to be better, either.

>Before anyone
>accuses me of using a strange User Interface technique, let me say
>that the effect I am suggesting is also used by the MPW Commando tool,
>although I don't know what method Commando uses.

I think Commando is a major mess, and extraordinarily ugly all around.
I really liked it when it first came out, but over time I've come to
realize that its incredibly busy dialogs and non-intuitive pop-ups are
a very bad solution to the problem it's addressing.

>     (*DialogPeek->textH)->viewRect gives you the Rect enclosing the
>active editText item, which is what I need for my cursor changing
>algorithm to work.  I don't suppose you could find that without using
>DialogPeek?

Nope.  You have to look at the DialogPeek to figure out which item is
the current editText item.  This is an oversight in the dialog manager
-- they forgot to put the "fetch" equivalent of SelIText in there.  I
prefer having the i-beam cursor over any editText item, but this is
really just a personal preference.  Still, it does let you have higher
level code than putting it just over the active item.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"There are no Famous People on the net.  Only some of us with bigger mouths
 than others."  -- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, The Roach