¬ChooserPaletteä  

ChooserPalette was written by Objective Technologies, Inc.  Objective Technologies was the first company to develop commercially-available custom object palettes for the NeXTä.  They are one of the premier developers of NeXT software.  They can be contacted at 

								7 Dey Street, Suite 1502, 
								NY, NY 10007
								1-800-3OBJECT
								212-227-6767
								fax: 212-227-3567
								 info@object.com
								 
ChooserPalette is an Interface Builderä palette that is a selection list manager.  With it, most list handling tasks can be accomplished from Interface Builder.  By removing list management tasks from the application logic development time can be reduced dramatically.

Within ChooserPalette is an object, the OTChooser, which is a control that displays a selection list in a scrolling region with an optional title.  In addition to text, the OTChooser entries can also display icons, tag values, and markers which indicate if an entry has been selected by the user. The OTChooser can send a user-specified action to a target when one or more of its cells are selected. 

The selection list is a matrix of OTChooserCells. The matrix can be configured for single or multiple cell selection.  The OTChooserCell manages the icon, tag value, and selection marker.  

	· Icon: The icon can be used to indicate an attribute of the entry and can be shared among 	cells or unique for each cell.  
	
	· Tag Field: The tag field displays the cell's tag value to the right of the icon.  
	
	· Marker Field: The marker field is an icon that is visible until the user selects the cell for the 	first time.  
	
The OTChooser implements standard list functions including "next" and "previous" for moving through the cells, and "delete" for removing entries. 

ChooserPalette was reviewed in the March 1992 issue of NeXTWatch.  The following is an excerpt of that review:

"This object [ChooserPalette] is well thought out and very useful.  Almost any application requires the user to have to select a choice from a list of options.  ChooserPalette offers a simple way of doing that....  ChooserPalette is highly recommended for companies that do a lot of in-house production and need to roll out applications out the door as fast as they can.  Like all of the other palettes from Objective Technologies, ChooserPalette is well-written and easy to use, and comes with excellent documentation and sample code."

The release version of ChooserPalette runs under the 2.0 version of NeXTSTEPä.  A beta version of the software that operates with NeXTSTEP 3.0 is available on this CD-Rom.  A release version of the software that runs with the 3.0 operating system will be available to everyone shortly after NeXT releases the 3.0 operating system.  This will be distributed free of charge to all customers who own the version compatible with the 2.0 operating system.  

Detailed documentation is included with the software.

Price:	ChooserPalette single license and software:       $  499

Purchasing a single license allows up to five machines to share ChooserPalette over a network.  There are no run-time fees for applications developed using these objects.  Educational institutions receive a 50% discount.   Contact Objective Technologies, Inc. for site license information. 

For additional information on this or any of the other products produced by Objective Technologies, phone 1-800-3OBJECT, send e-mail to: info_palettes@object.com, or write to:

										Objective Technologies, Inc.
										7 Dey Street, Suite 1502
										New York, NY 10007

										
Installation Directions

ChooserPalette consists of a loadable Interface Builder palette (Chooser.palette), a library containing the compiled ChooserPalette objects (libChooser.a), interface (".h") files describing the palette's objects, and documentation describing the objects and how they are used.  The Installer application installs these files as follows:

	File Type	Directory
	
	Palette	/LocalPalettes
	
	Library	/usr/lib
	
	Interface Files	/usr/include/otikit
	
	Documentation	/LocalLibrary/Documentation/OTI

The ChooserPalette distribution consists of four ".pkg" (Package) files:  ChooserPalette.pkg, ChooserDoc.pkg, ChooserHeaders.pkg and ChooserLib.pkg.  Each file contains a different part of the Chooser palette; the palette file itself, the documentation, the header files and the library, respectively.  Installing the ChooserPalette consists of opening each of the ".pkg" files and installing each of them in turn.

By following the steps below, you will install the ChooserPalette in the standard locations listed above.  If, for some reason, you wish to place the ChooserPalette files elsewhere, NeXT'sâ Installer application will allow you to change the directory you wish to install files into. 

·	Login to your computer as "root".  If you do not have access to "root", then your system administrator must install the palette.

·	If this is the first Objective Technologies palette you are installing, you will need to create the /LocalPalettes and also possibily the /LocalLibrary/Documentation directory.  To do this, double click on the "Start" script.  The script will create those directories if they do not already exist.

·	 Double click on the file named "ChooserPalette.pkg"; this is the palette's package file.  It will launch the Installer application. 

·	When the Installer application's window appears, click the Install button in the upper left-hand corner of the window.  

·	A panel will appear asking you if you wish to continue with the installation of the palette into the "/LocalPalettes" directory.  Click on "Install".

·	The Installer application will notify you when the installation is complete.  Once it is complete, repeat the last four steps with each of the ChooserHeaders.pkg, ChooserLib.pkg and ChooserDoc.pkg packages.  

After the installation is complete, the ChooserPalette library, libChooser.a, must be updated in order to link the ChooserPalette objects.  The following steps will update your installed library:

·	Double click on "UpdateLibrary" file which you will find in /LocalLibrary/Documentation/OTI/ChooserPalette. 	
Using ChooserPalette

You may now use ChooserPalette.  A tutorial which describes how to use the ChooserPalette objects is provided with the ChooserPalette.  The tutorial is called UsingTheChooser.rtfd  and is in the directory /LocalLibrary/Documentation/OTI/ChooserPalette/OT_Support.

		

		

		

									
				
ChooserPalette is a trademark of Objective Technologies, Inc.  Interface Builder, NeXT and NeXTSTEP are trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc.  ChooserPalette Product Description. Copyright ã 1992 Objective Technologies, Inc.