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- Item 5647085 4-June-89 15:39
-
- From: MOOF Rollin, Keith A, APL
-
- To: MACAPP.TECH$ MACAPP Tech
-
- Sub: Re: Command Handling
-
- Curtis,
-
- You write:
-
- "Suppose you wish to have a document handle menu commands whether or not the
- window of that document happens to be the front window. That document will not
- be in the command chain the minute you deactivate its window. This limits
- documents activities to those that pertain only to active windows (at least
- without a lot of fuss). If you wanted to have a document handle commands that
- created windows for that document, you would not be able to do so if a window
- of another document was active."
-
- Could you expand upon this example? From what you describe here, I think that
- what you are attempting to do is not very kosher.
-
- One of the tenets of the Apple Desktop Interface is that you are presented with
- all of your tools, data, options, etc. It should be relatively obvious what
- will happen for any given action.
-
- However, it sounds like you are going against that philosophy. For instance,
- based on your description above, I get the picture of, say, a couple of
- document windows behind some modeless dialog sort of thing. You then propose
- that selecting a certain menu item alters a document in some way.
-
- Which one?!?
-
- There is no way for the user to know which document will be affected. Most
- programs require you to specify which document you want to work on by selecting
- it first. That's what being an "active window" means in the first place.
-
- - Keith Rollin
- - Apple Developer Technical Support
-
-