Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsd!nosc!manta!lulue
From: lulue@manta.NOSC.MIL (Dan Lulue )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Changing a menu using a resource
Keywords: str255
Message-ID: <346@manta.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 16 May 88 22:13:08 GMT
Organization: Computer Sciences Corporation
Lines: 38


I want to be toggle a menu item from "Turn Herman On" to "Turn Herman
Of", and back.  The BOOK says that it is good practice to store the two
strings in a resource file instead of calling SetItem with the literal
strings [SetItem(menus(8),1,"Turn Herman On"), and SetItem(menus(8),1,
"Turn Herman Off")]..

Always wanting to be proper, I created two entries in the resource file
viz:

	resource 'STR ' (2083) {
		"Turn Herman On"
	};
	resource 'STR ' (2084) {
		"Turn Herman Off"
	};

and placed the following declarations in the include file:

#define ONID	2083	
#define OFFID	2084	

Is this correct so far?

Now GetResource returns a handle to the requested resource.  My question
is how to map that handle to the strings stored in the resource?  Once I
have a handle, what do I pass to SetItem??  Here is my GetResource call:

	Handle	theHandle;
		theHandle = GetResource ('STR ', OFFID);

A more generic question is "How does one figure out how to do something
the proper way when IM does not tell you how to do it the proper way?

Thank you very much in advance for any help you provide.

Dan.
lulue@nosc.mil