Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ginosko!usc!apple!keith
From: keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: New MacApp Features
Keywords: What do you want?
Message-ID: <34594@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 8 Sep 89 18:38:56 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 50


Hello, folks,

MacApp 2.0b9 has been available from APDA for about a month now. Some of you 
have been playing around with, some of you are still using MacApp 2.0b5, and
probably eveve some are still using 1.1. Now there's even the Think C Class
libraries to hack around with.

MacApp 2.0b9 is the last release of MacApp before we go final with 2.0. After
that, we'll be working full steam ahead on the next version of MacApp. What
I'd like to know is what people would like to see in it. Any good ideas?
Anything is fair game, from the addition of a new global variable to a totally
new class structure. Some ideas that we've had are:

	- New TDocument structure. People have commented that it isn't
	  general enough to handle multi-file documents such as databases
	- New TDialog structure. There are many limitations in the current
	  implementation that are there solely for emulation of the Toolbox
	  Dialog Manager. Some of these limitations are ludicrous and don't
	  need to be kept.
	- New Printing architecture. The current method is not very flexible.
	  It seems to only want to support printing one main view and its
	  subview, rather than multiple parallel views.
	- A more MacLike debugger. This command line thing has got to go!
	- An extended debugger. More commands. What would you like?
	- Support for 7.0, 32-bit Color QuickDraw. What specifically would
	  people like to see here???
	- More base classes or building blocks? How about a TBitMapView? How
	  about some CS101 classes (TStack, TQueue, TBubbleSortList, TQuick
	  SortList, TDataCompressor, whatever)? 
	- A Windows menu mechanism?
	- A robust message passing system (IMC? Inter method communication?)
	  I'm thinking of a more flexible mechanism than fNextHandler chains.
	  This could allow for different views to talk to each other, as well
	  as other bennies.
	- More view attributes. Extensions to the existing SizeDeterminers as
	  well as adding LocationDeterminers.

Please note that all of these are just IDEAS! None of what I've listed above
is to be construed as work in progress, mostly because I've thought of about
half of them just now. What I'm really looking for are your comments on the
viability/usefulness of the above list, as well as a massive outflow of your
own ideas.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Rollin  ---  Apple Computer, Inc.  ---  Developer Technical Support
INTERNET: keith@apple.com
    UUCP: {decwrl, hoptoad, nsc, sun, amdahl}!apple!keith
"Argue for your Apple, and sure enough, it's yours" - Keith Rollin, Contusions