Referential is a control panel which takes advantage of the AppleEvent Interface to Think Reference.
What it does:
Referential Expansion fills in the arguments for any subroutine that is documented in Think Reference. The arguments are automatically typed any time you follow a function name with (?. For example, typing
If instead of (?, you type (>, the arguments will not be typed, but Think Reference will be brought to the front at the proper page. At this point, command-i will iconize Think Reference and place it in the background if you have "AutoSwitch on Iconize" checked in the Think Reference Preferences. This provides a quick way to look up a function and then get back to where you were in your editor.
Note: Referential Expansion will not launch Think Reference if it is already running...you still need to do this yourself.
The control panel settings are pretty straight forward--the only options are 1) Turn Referential Expansion on/off, and 2) Show/Hide the startup icon. These changes only take effect after restarting your Mac.
Compatibility:
This is a System 7 ONLY control panel. Apple Events aren't much good without it! Also, Referential Expansion WILL NOT WORK from applications whose High Level Event Aware bit is set to zero in their SIZE resource. MPW 3.2 users...this means you. You can always toggle this bit in ResEdit, but you'll lose the ability to open files by double clicking on them.
Referential Expansion has been tested with a variety of inits and several types of Macintoshes without incident.
Questions? Comments?
Send them to Chris Prinos via
Compuserve: 70414,2266
or
Internet: cprinos@symantec.com
Thanks to...
Tom Emerson, Kevin Irlen, and Scott Schurr for doing the initial testing.
Legal Stuff:
Referential Expansion is not a commercial product of Symantec, and as such Symantec offers no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the suitability for use of this software. Neither the author, nor Symantec, assume responsibility for any damage or loss of data that is a direct or indirect result of using this software.
Referential Expansion is free software, and may be freely distributed as long as it is accompanied by this READ ME file.