Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!leah!wfh58
From: wfh58@leah.Albany.Edu (William F. Hammond)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Ptr to top screen
Summary: Is it "legal" to open a window there?
Message-ID: <2846@leah.Albany.Edu>
Date: 8 Apr 90 00:08:30 GMT
References: <170009@hplsla.HP.COM> <706@mpirbn.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfh58@leah.albany.edu.UUCP (William F. Hammond)
Organization: Dept of Math & Stat, SUNYA, Albany, NY
Lines: 33

In article <706@mpirbn.UUCP> p554mve@mpirbn.UUCP (Michael van Elst) writes:
>In article <170009@hplsla.HP.COM> davidb@hplsla.HP.COM (David Bakeman) writes:
>>I hope this is a simple question!  Is there a "legal" way to get a pointer
>>to the current top screen?  In other words if I have a workbench screen and 
>>a couple of custom screens is there a way to get a pointer to one of the
>>custom screens when it is the top screen?
>
>There is a legal way, but there aren't many legal operations you could do
>with this screen (unless you have opened the screen yourself).
> . . .
  One of the things I might want to do on someone else's screen is open
a window for my application.  For example, I (the user) often run "VLT"
under its custom screen option.  Sometimes, I "need" to have a memory
monitor available there.  So I hacked one up that opens up a little "strip"
window (just high enough to have borders and one line of text and long
enough to have close, front/back, and drag gadgets plus ten or so characters
of text) *on the ACTIVE screen*.  I LockIBase long enough to grab the
pointer, determine basic screen parameters, and open my window; then I
release the lock.  I do wonder about the "legality" of this.  One obvious
problem is that the screen owner (usually at the behest of the user) may
close the screen while the "foreign" window is still open.  In the particular
instance I have just cited this fortunately does not lead to big fireworks
but only to a certain waste of memory and cpu since I did not attempt to
make provision in the code for that possibility.
  Turning the legality question around a little bit:  Why should the
programmer assume that the user always wants windows that are not intended
for a screen belonging to the program to go on the WorkBench Screen?
                      -- Bill
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William F. Hammond                   Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics
518-442-4625                         SUNYA, Albany, NY 12222
wfh58@leah.albany.edu                wfh58@albnyvms.bitnet
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