Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!deadman
From: deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: INIT/cdev Idea!
Message-ID: <1991Apr20.210258.6403@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 20 Apr 91 21:02:58 GMT
References: <1991Apr19.080327.12584@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu> <1991Apr19.141544.29846@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
Organization: Stick Software
Lines: 24

>I had an INIT/cdev idea as well (for System 7).  How about an auto-Hide Others?
>All those other open apps really can get distracting.  When I'm using THINK
>Pascal and have a half-dozen units open, sometimes you'll see something way in
>back and think it's the unit you're looking for.  Click on it and you're in the
>Finder.  Whoops.
>
>Could and INIT or such just patch the _Launch and post a mouseDown in the Hide
>Others menu item?  I wouldn't know how to write an INIT, so feel free to knock
>this one off to your own credit.

  I tried briefly doing this.  It's harder than it looks.  The System
appears to check for the MF menu selections inside MenuSelect itself as far
as I can tell, so simply patching MenuSelect at INIT time and returning the
proper value for the Hide Others item doesn't work, it just returns that
menu item selection to the running application, which (of course) doesn't
know what to do with it.
  Using the Process Manager seems doomed from the start, since (at least as
far as I can tell) the Process Manager doesn't support hiding and showing
layers, and doesn't work correctly anyway (as of beta 6).

-Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
"Tin legs and tin mines, anyone cries
 Cry in the hope that there'll be tomorrow..."
   -Midnight Oil