Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: List Manager questions Message-ID: <8156@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 28 Jul 89 18:39:37 GMT References: <8374@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <227700017@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <8115@hoptoad.uucp> <5129@umd5.umd.edu> <8138@hoptoad.uucp> <5134@umd5.umd.edu> Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco Lines: 37 In article <5134@umd5.umd.edu> zben@umd5.umd.edu (Ben Cranston) writes: >Yes, I realize it is pretty innocuous and nobody will notice, but I will notice! >Like Hebrew National* hotdogs I have to answer to a higher authority. My code >will never leave ghost select bars in inactive TextEdit items, and it will by > activate and deactivate its windows properly. Yeah, I'm not saying it's a good idea to omit LActivate calls, I'm just saying it's not all that serious if you do. Concern was expressed about crashing-type problems when using lists in dialogs, and I was just pointing out that this isn't a problem of that magnitude. >I guess you can't fault Apple for falling down on this one. In order to do it >right they would have to: > >1. Extend item codes to include a "list" item, so the dialog routines could > recognize lists in item lists. >2. Get everybody to make their lists as "list" items rather than "user" items > patched after dialog load time. >3. Modify the dialog routines, which now search for textedit items to be > activated and deactivated, to also activate and deactivate "list" items. > >I guess it was just easier to push the work off onto ALL the application >writers... Pretty much correct (though with respect to scroll bars, there's a better solution which involves using the window control list). Still, wouldn't it have been nice if Apple had added list items to dialogs? It would save us all some coding. Looking at the item list data structure, I can see that it would have been extremely easy to add a new type. Probably, though, they forgot to include the hooks in the ROM which would allow new item types to be added without putting in a whole RAM-based Dialog Manager. Oh well. -- Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained..." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"