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From: wjs@milton.u.washington.edu (William Jon Shipley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Interface Builder observations
Message-ID: <16533@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 16 Feb 91 04:58:51 GMT
References: <423@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 38

Glenn C. Reid ("That's Mr. PostScript, SIR, to You!") writes:
>[Interface Builder is keen, but...]
>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?

I was once told that IB does this by creating two new windows, one which
is 2 pixels wide and the other two pixels high, both opaque black.  It
then resizes and moves them as you move the cursor.  Yes, kind of a hack.

>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.

Jayson Adams shows how to do this in his "Acceptor" example
(/NextDeveloper/Examples/Acceptor).  Basically, he creates a new changeable
view, and calls:
  [[[NXApp appIcon] setContentView:appIconView] free]

>3.  There are several features which are only accessible by holding
>    down modifier keys[...]

Ugly stuff.

>5.  The "Format" menu should really be the "Font" menu, according
>    to the user interface guidelines.

And "File" should be "Document" or "Interface".

>Anybody else have thoughts about this?

I did.  One cute thing I noticed was the default App_main.m that IB creates
does a:
    NXApp = [Application new];
Naughty, naughty, bad, bad.

-william shipley