Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!swatsun!swatsun!gessel From: gessel@carthage.cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NOT (click to type) in NeXTStep? Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 90 17:45:55 GMT References: <1990Nov14.210337.16130@uvm.edu> Sender: news@cs.swarthmore.edu Organization: Swarthmore College, Swarthmore Pa. Lines: 53 In-Reply-To: pegram@kira.UUCP's message of 14 Nov 90 21:03:37 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: carthage In article <1990Nov14.210337.16130@uvm.edu> pegram@kira.UUCP (Robert B. Pegram) writes: All right, I will 8-). I don't have a NeXT, but if the gods are amenable, will someday. On my Atari ST (yes, I am getting the Mac emulator, much discussed here, gotta get more software 8-) there is an alternate shell (desktop) that allows something else that NeXT should provide. I'm surprised in fact, that this sort of thing isn't easily fixable in your much vaunted Objective C development environment. The feature is an extra button that sends its window to the back, behind all the other windows. It's very convenient, and I just wish that all ST (and Mac and NeXT) windows could do this, because window arrangement is then much less of a black art. I also like the idea expressed above, it would be nice on my xterm (I know, boo, hiss 8-) as well as on the Atari or a NeXT. Consider adding the window-to-the-back button to the window manager package you're thinking of making. Just my $0.02. Bob Pegram Actually, the right way to do this would be with a subclass of window. This is really the only way (that I know of) to change the window structure (in terms of buttons etc). That is, the window manager doesn't determine what the windows look like, the code of the window object does. However, this would be hard to get on windows of applications that you don't have the source code for, except . . . The NeXT uses shared libraries, which if I understand it correctly, means that the programs themselves don't have the library code linked in, this is done at runtime (and there may only be one image in memory of a library routine, I don't know if this feature falls under the same category). If there was a way to substitute in your own code for the library routines that control the window, people could customize their windowing systems all to heck. There might be collisions between other subclasses of windows and new class variations that could be installed in this way. It also may be hard or potentially irriversable. It could, also, be the equivalent of a mac init, which would allow people to customize their NeXT's. (there's also the problem of multi users, etc). You could probably write a subclass of window that has a tracking rect, that put the focus (not a view type focus) when the mouse was moved into it, without moving the window to the front. Does anybody know if this kind of library routine substitution would work? Dan -- Daniel Mark Gessel Independent Software Consultant Internet: gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu and Developer My opinions are not necessarily representative of those of Swarthmore College.