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From: Julian.Wright@comp.vuw.ac.nz (John Julian Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: MessageTrans (Menus)
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.013807.5702@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Date: 14 Mar 91 01:38:07 GMT
References: <a3fc7d8b@snulbug.uucp> <+GG&9-$@warwick.ac.uk> <7114@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
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In article <7114@ecs.soton.ac.uk> you write:

|> I just read my menu item text in from the messages file, and settle for
|> doing it like that.  I have my own shorthand which I particularly like,
|> and so I don't use the MessageTrans_MakeMenus SWI at all.
|> 
|> (IDEA: If MessageTrans comes with the Printer Drivers, try looking at
|> the !RunImage files in the printer drivers. )

I have looked inside the PrinterDM !RunImage, only to find that Acorn
are doing exactly the same thing as you! I can not find any reference to
MessageTrans_MakeMenus or it's decimal numeric equivalent with a LIST
IF, so I assume it is not there. The menu is in fact read from the file
like any other, and parsed by a BASIC function to produce the final menu
block.

I have always used quite a radically different method of creating menu blocks:
use the assembler with EQUD statements for data values and labels to
point to the
various submenus. I have refined it somewhat by using macro assembly,
such that I
don't actually need to worry about EQUDs any more:
  eg
	.mainmenu
	FNmenu_start("Grapevine",menu_width%)
	FNmenu_item(&00,infow%  ,&21,"Info")
	FNmenu_item(&00,def_menu,&21,"Defaults")
	FNmenu_item(&80,-1      ,&21,"Quit")
	.def_menu
	FNmenu_start("Defaults",72)
	FNmenu_item(&00,-1,&21,"Load")
	FNmenu_item(&80,-1,&21,"Save")

It has the advantage that you need never worry about having to tick or
untick an item, for example because a ticked item can de defined as:
	FNmenu_item(-reverse%,-1,&21,"Reverse Sort")
and the tick will be set or cleared depending on the state of variable
'reverse%'.

Unfortunately this technique doesn't work very well with compilers,
which seem to have hernias over anything assembled :-(

    Cheers, Julian.