Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!apple!keith
From: keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Append menu is slow.
Keywords: AppendMenu menu slow efficiency
Message-ID: <30414@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 10 May 89 11:52:05 GMT
References: <89May9.171757edt.11077@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> <29122@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 43

In article <29122@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes:
>In article <89May9.171757edt.11077@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> dudek@ai.toronto.edu (Gregory Dudek) writes:
>>  I am using AppendMenu to make some big menus and it is slowwwwww (i.e. on
>>the order of 5 seconds on a Mac Plus).
>
>The structure of menus is documented in Inside Mac. Menu items are
>basically pascal strings followed by four bytes of extra information. At
>the end of the muenu is a null byte.  You can use Munger to insert items
>into a menu, then call CalcMenuSize() yourself after you are all done.
>
>If you are really paranoid, you can copy and renumber the current menu
>definition procedure and set up your menu to use it. That will guarantee
>that if Apple ever changes the format of standard menus, and the MDEF to
>run them, that your menus will still work.  I think this is over-paranoia
>myself.

I don't. I think that what you suggest is very bad. Sure, the Menu Manager data
structures are documented, but...

Inside Mac V, page 228:

	"WARNING: The MenuList data structure is listed for information only;
	 	  applications should never access it directly."

Inside Mac V, page 230:

	"WARNING: The MenuInfo data structure is listed for information only;
		  applications should never access it directly. This structure
		  is not a valid Pascal type because of its dynamic size; it's
		  shown for conceptual purposes only."

That's enough warning to make _ME_ paranoid. However, there is one other little
facet of this whole situation that would make me shiver under my bed. Check 
out Technote #227: "Toolbox Karma." That's the one that talks about not
depending on internal data structures. 

It's also written by the guy who is working on the Menu Manager...
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"Argue for your Apple, and sure enough, it's yours" - Keith Rollin, Contusions