Menu Bar XCMD
Volume Number: 5
Issue Number: 5
Column Tag: HyperChat™
By Fred Stauder, HyperChat Editor, Zurich, Switzerland
Note: Source code files accompanying article are located on MacTech CD-ROM orsource code disks.
on HyperChat
The Interface Race is On
I attended the Hannover CeBit fair in mid March. It is without doubt the biggest
computer exhibition on earth. If you think the MacWorld Expos are getting huge, CeBit
is no comparison; it is at least 20 times the size. It lasts for eight days, and even if you
tried to go through systematically, there’s no hope. It consists of everything from
mainframes down to pocket computers, computer security systems, video
conferencing, and much, much more. It was good to see that the Apple stand was one of
the most popular (the IIcx and the screens were introduced there).
Some of the exciting things were a 16 gigabyte eraseable(rewritable) library
unit that stores 20 cartridges and can change them in 6 seconds. The units can be
linked together to hold 224 GB on line and SCSI. Another interesting thing was an
information display unit, like a small billboard (A1 size), encased in glass. It contains
a waxed plastic roll and a toner mechanism. The end result is that you can print to this
thing, and it rolls up to be displayed. the toner is not fixed so you can re-write to it.
Color and larger versions are in the works. In the future we will see billboards that
will be updated from a remote computer in seconds. This is a very innovative output
device, I can hardly wait to see the weird uses people will put to it.
It was such a pleasure attending CeBit; they treated the international press
magnificently, and was such a contrast to the unproffesional treatment by Industrade
in Switzerland.
There were of course lots of other great goodies but space does not permit.
Anyway my job is to tell you about MultiMedia and interface, but it is important to
realize how things like, cheaper larger mass storage and innovative output devices can
change the way we have to design programs.
OpenLook which has been dubbed the “universal” interface for Unix
environments was being shown everywhere, as was X windows and presentation
manager. Sun was showing off SunWrite, SunPaint, and SunDraw. My impression: 5
years late and not as userfriendly. This was the first non-Mac show that I have been to
that most of the Key players were concerned about Human Interface. As CPU’s match
CPU’s in performance and cost, and software does the same, it is important to realize
the most important thing is: “How long will it take to learn”, and “Do I need a
manual”. If your software is intuitive to use and easier to use people are more likely
to buy it.
I have a button (fig. 1) that reads "My Boss is the End User".
I think we should all make him our Boss. If I am not making his life easier and
bettering his experience then I am not doing my job.
Now for the quiz last month. The monkey lives. How many people have heard the
monkey beep on the Mac II? How many of you knew that it is a human sound? I didn’t
believe it either until I met Sandi Dobrowolsky in person (formally from Apple and
now at Claris), and she demonstrated the monkey sound. She really can have fun near
peoples machines because she can reproduce it accurately every time, so people think
there is something wrong with their Mac. It is, by the way, the only Human sound to be
shipped with a Mac. So “eek eek” Sandi and I hope you and Steve had a great trip “down
under” (my home country). So we look forward to hearing Koala and Kangaroo sounds.
The point that I am making is that with a bit of creativity and experimentation
you can come up with great sounds and graphics, that won’t get you into copyright
problems. Expand your horizons, use the Human Interface Guidelines (they are not
absolute rules), experiment and go beyond our present limitations. The interface is
the future.
Figure 1.
Your wish is my XCMD
I have two XCMD’s this month that I find quite useful. The first I called
invisMenuBar, it makes the menubar invisible and still functional. It is really useful
when developing on a small screen. The Human Interface Guidelines clearly state “don’t
hide things from the user and don’t surprise them”. So why am I showing you this
XCMD? Firstly I would strongly object to people using it in a stack. It is a
development/power user tool it may help you develop stacks and browse through other
peoples if you have a small screen. Just like MacsBug deviates a long way from the
guidelines but is highly useable and appropriate in it’s context. What it does. It simply
uses a callback to hypertalk to hide the menubar, then it sets the height of the menubar
to the height of it’s natural state. Hypercard is fooled to think that it is hidden so it
doesn’t do a menubar redraw, however when you have a mousedown in the menubar it
accepts it and draws the menu.
Figure 2.
(*
invisMenuBar-- a sHyperCard external command
that makes the menubar invisible yet functional.
Written in MPW Pascal.
Written by Fred Stauder
©All rights reserved 1988
pascal :Sources:XCMD:InvisMenuBar.p
link -o AJS-60:test -rt XCMD=7004 -sn ∂
Main=InvisMenuBar :Sources:XCMD:InvisMenuBar.p.o ∂
o -m ENTRYPOINT
*)
InvisMenuBar
Segment name must be the same as the command name.
UNIT Fred_Stauder;
INTERFACE
USES MemTypes, QuickDraw, OSIntf, ToolIntf, PackIntf, PasLibIntf,
HyperXCmd;
PROCEDURE ENTRYPOINT(paramPtr:XCmdPtr);
IMPLEMENTATION
TYPE Str31 = String[31];
PROCEDURE InvisMenuBar(paramPtr:XCmdPtr); FORWARD;
PROCEDURE ENTRYPOINT(paramPtr:XCmdPtr);
BEGIN
InvisMenuBar(paramPtr);
END;
PROCEDURE InvisMenuBar(paramPtr:XCmdPtr);
XCmdGlue.inc the glue routines
VAR menuBarHeight: Ptr;
BEGIN
SendCardMessage(‘hide menubar’);
menuBarHeight := Ptr($BAB);
directly to the global the only way possible
menuBarHeight^ := $14;
END;
END.
Listing 1.
The second XCMD allows you to change the window type. This is useful when you
want to do a presentation and not have the window title visible. Or if you want to make a
small window for a specific purpose. (fig.3.) The windowDefproc and the high order
byte holds the window variation code. First you pass a parameter with the XCMD
changeWindowType, that gives you the desired window. the types are the same as in
Inside mac V I p273.
documentProc = 0 (standard document window)
dBoxProc = 1 (alert box or modal dialog box)
plainDBox = 2 (plain box)
altDBoxProc = 3 (plain box with shadow)
noGrowDocProc = 4 (document window without size)
rDocProc = 16(rounded-corner window)
Figure 3.
You take the parameter, convert to a Longint, then comes the slightly tricky bit
where you have to do bit manipulation to write it to the high order byte of the
windowDefproc. You can get the window type by using the function GetWVariant. I will
leave this as an exercise for you to write, so that once you have changed the window
type you will be able to find out what it is through an XFCN.
Diagram 1. shows how the bits are manipulated to put the window variant into
high order byte of theWindow^.DefProc handle. Then I hide and show the cardwindow to
update the screen.
Diagram 1.
Listing 2.
Written in MPW Pascal.
Written by Fred Stauder
©All rights reserved 1988
(*
pascal :changeWindowType.p
link -o Development:Demo:home -rt XCMD=7005sn ∂
Main=changeWindowType :changeWindowType.p.o -m ENTRYPOINT
*)
changeWindowType name must be the same as the command name
UNIT DummyUnit;
INTERFACE
USES MemTypes, QuickDraw, OSIntf, ToolIntf, PasLibIntf, HyperXCmd;
PROCEDURE ENTRYPOINT(paramPtr:XCmdPtr);
IMPLEMENTATION
Str31 = String[31];
PROCEDURE changeWindowType(paramPtr:XCmdPtr); FORWARD;
PROCEDURE ENTRYPOINT(paramPtr:XCmdPtr);
BEGIN
changeWindowType(paramPtr);
END;
PROCEDURE changeWindowType(paramPtr:XCmdPtr);
VAR
HCWindow: WindowPtr;
theWindow: WindowPeek;
tempStr: Str255;
kind: Longint;
newWind: Longint;
firstMask: Longint;
firstShift: Longint;
secondMask: Longint;
XCmdGlue.inc the glue routines
BEGIN
GetPort(HCWindow);
thy port
ZeroToPas(paramPtr^.params[1]^,tempStr);
kind := StrToNum(tempStr);
theWindow := WindowPeek(HCWindow);
firstMask := BitAnd(Kind,$000000FF);
firstShift := BitShift(firstMask,24);
secondMask :=
BitAnd(LONGINT(theWindow^. windowDefProc),$00FFFFFF);
newWind := BitOR(firstShift,secondMask);
theWindow^. windowDefProc := Handle(newWind);
SendHCMessage(‘hide cd window’);
SendHCMessage(‘show cd window’);
SetPort(HCWindow);
thy port
END;
END.
Next month I will show you an XCMD that will allow you to resize the card
window of Hypercard such as in Fig. 3.
Send articles ideas, comments etc to Applelink: STAUDER.
end HyperChat
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