Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!src.honeywell.com!msi.umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!gacvx2.gac.edu!gacvx2.gac.edu!scott From: scott@erick.gac.edu (Scott Hess) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Interface Builder observations Message-ID: Date: 15 Feb 91 16:51:00 GMT References: <423@heaven.woodside.ca.us> Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College Lines: 60 Nntp-Posting-Host: erick.gac.edu In-reply-to: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us's message of 15 Feb 91 09:14:45 GMTLines: 60 In article <423@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: 1. It is the only program I've seen that draws outside its windows onto the rest of the screen (when you control-drag to make a connection). How on earth does it do this? It seems like it must be a hack; I haven't seen any support for it in the AppKit Those lines are actually windows. Same with the lines you get when you resize windows (you said that only IB draws outside windows - but how do the windows do it, eh?) Looking closely into the innards of the way windows are handled (read /usr/lib/NextStep/ windowPackage.ps) reveals that there are semi-standard ways of requesting windows to use in this fashion. How can you tell they're windows? One - click on the line where it goes over something else, and the click doesn't make it to the window behind the lines. Two - on a slower machine (either an '030 or a busy '040), you can often see that the lines get out of sync - the end of one line moves, while the other sometimes isn't updated quickly enough. That is a clue that there're windows involved. 2. It is the only program I've seen that alters the look of its icon while it's in the dock (when you're in "test interface" mode it turns into a giant switch). How on earth does it do this? It seems like it too must be a hack. Sure, it is a hack. Lot's of apps do this. Download my IconBounce program from the archive sites to see how. It's got a slight bug in 2.0 where it doesn't erase the original icon correctly, but that's not a big problem. 4. You can't type a copyright symbol for love or money into a text field in IB. It doesn't seem to use the standard keyboard mapping from Preferences. You need the symbol font availiable. For a TextField, you simply can't do that (you can only use one font). You _can_ simulate it - place a small TextField over a space left in the one behind it, change the font to Symbol for it, and put the copyright symbol in there. 5. The "Format" menu should really be the "Font" menu, according to the user interface guidelines. Depends. Font should be under the Format menu as a submenu. Since the other stuff which belongs under the Format menu (Text, etc) doesn't really belong in IB, the Font menu was promoted to be in the Format menu. Lot's of apps will do this. Stuart should, but I couldn't do it in NextStep1.0 (because it couldn't find the Font menu if I renamed it Format), and I was too lazy to fix it in Stuart2.11 - I also forgot, but that's besides the point. Later, -- scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer GAC Undergrad "Tried anarchy, once. Found it had too many constraints . . ." "Buy `Sweat 'n wit '2 Live Crew'`, a new weight loss program by Richard Simmons . . ."