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From: nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nicko van Someren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Editors
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.103204.29939@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: 2 Apr 91 10:32:04 GMT
Reply-To: nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nicko van Someren)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Lines: 27
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A request to those of you out there who write editors, especially those at
Acorn.

Can we have a new pair of message action numbers to denote a request to 
invoke and editor from another application.  What I envisage is that my
application (a database say) broadcasts a message with a similar syntax to
a MDATASAVE to say 'I have a file of type xxx and size yyy and the user
wants to modify it, but I want it back afterwards.'  For the vast majority
of editors it would not be hard to open a window with a pane window on
one side with a 'DONE' button.  When the editor picks up a broadcast it thinks
it can deal with it can go through the same procedure it would for a MDATASAVE
and allows the use to edit the data. When the user clicks the 'DONE' button the
editor would use another message to send the data back, again using a 
transfer procedure like MDATASAVE, including the message reference number that
was sent originally.  There should probably be some method to cancel the whole
action as well.

All it would take would be for Acorn to asign the message numbers and define
the message syntax if it needs to be different, then we can write programs that
envoke the existing editors and let you jump in and out of them from your
hypertext system or what ever.


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Nicko van Someren, nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk, (44) 223 358707 or (44) 860 498903    |
|       "Go and buy an Aleph One ARM3 card and stop whining!!!"               |
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