Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!well!svc
From: svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: System 7.0 and tear-off menus
Summary: Some advantages to this...
Message-ID: <13005@well.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 89 16:26:19 GMT
References: <269.24AE0D88@bmug.FIDONET.ORG> <908@accuvax.nwu.edu> <26944@srcsip.UUCP>
Lines: 39

In article <26944@srcsip.UUCP>, mnkonar@gorby.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Murat N. Konar) writes:
> In article <846@mrsvr.UUCP> hallett@mrsvr.UUCP (Jeff Hallett) writes:
> > [discussion of the TOM Init and where to find it]
> 
> Meanwhile, I feel compelled to point out that their implementation
> of tear of menus is not quite as elegant as the Radius implementation
> (for example).  The "tear off menu" is actually a window that has the
> menu items drawn in it.  when you want to make selection from the menu,
> the code makes a call to popUpMenuSelect and pops up a menu in the window.
> It looks right, but the overhead involved in popping the menu causes a
> response lag and you must hold the mouse button down until the item you
> want is inverted.  The Radius tear off menus are more like the Hypercard
> tear offs; you need only click on the item you want, not click and hold.
> 
	Everything you have said above about the way that TOM implements
TearOffs is competely true, as well as your comments about the Radius
implementation...HOWEVER (you knew this was coming didn't you :-) the TOM method
of doing tearoffs has some MAJOR advantages over the Radius method.
	My two biggest complaints about the Radius method are not true of the
TOM method due to the way they implement tearoffs. First off, when you tear off
a menu which is LARGER than your main monitor, the Radius implementation DOES
NOT provide for scrolling and as such it becomes limiting in which menus you
can tear off usefully.  The other significant limitation of the Radius method
has to do with hierMenus.  If you tear off a main menu which as subMenus, you
can NOT choose the subs off of the tearoff you have to either go back to the
menuBar or tear off the subs separately.
	TOM on the other hand, by calling a standard/supported(!) Apple routine
handles both of these issues properly and also insures that it will remain
compatible (at least in that respect) in the future.  It also means that you
can tearOff any nonStandard MDEF which may due funky things since it ends up
calling the MDEF to do all the processing itself rather than Radius ASSUMING
what kind of processing you do...


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Leonard Rosenthol        |  GEnie : MACgician
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