Software USA 4 #3/Software USA Volume 4.03.iso/mac/Home and Office/Hi's Universal Saver/Menu Events 1.3/Menu Events Help/Menu Events Help.rsrc/STR#_1030.txt

Text File | 1996-03-06 | 6.4 KB | 319 lines






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åLimitations





Some applications refuse to submit to the trickery of Menu Events.  The

prime example is any version of Finder which predates the Power

Macintosh (version 7.1.2).  It is not truly an Apple event server, and it

only respects events of known types.  Any other high-level event is not

replied to, and the send will time out.  ResEdit 2.1.1 is similar.  Some

Microsoft applications handle Apple events in a non-standard fashion,

binding their own event handlers over all Apple event classes, and

therefore should not be targeted.





The only way to know for sure is to try the ones you are interested in

controlling.  Certainly, anything you write yourself is a candidate, as long

as you follow the practices suggested in Apple documentation, namely:  Be

high-level-event-aware.  Always be ready to accept and dispatch an

Apple event.  Assume that any high-level event you don’t recognize is an

Apple event, and dispatch it as such.  If an unknown event reaches your

wildcard event handler, return errAEEventNotHandled, so that system

event handlers can get a crack at it.  Don’t deny other programs on the

same machine the right to request user interaction, which is the default.



Another limitation you should know about is that Menu Events can’t

operate dialogs and alerts which the target application may post in

response to the menu action.  If the menu item text ends in an ellipsis

('…') character, you can bet that the application will post a dialog or alert

box.  It is then up to the local user to operate the controls.



If the target machine is under the influence of a screen saver or security

package which would present a modal dialog in response to a mouse click,

then Query Menu and Select Menu Item events will time out.  The same is

true if the target machine is already showing a modal dialog, preventing

Menu Events from activating the target application.



A known conflict exists between Menu Events and Help on Wheels.  If you

send a Menu event to an application which does a casual help display

before performing the menu action, and if the help server is running,

problems may occur with the application.  The problem is that the Menu

event’s user interaction ends when the receiving application sends an

Apple event to the help server, causing it to return to the background.  If

the menu action causes a call to the Standard File Manager or any other

code which should not be called when in the background, the application

may hang.










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åProgrammer Notes





Write to the author at the above address if you want to know more about

the Menu Events extension or how it was programmed.












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åAcknowledgements





Thanks to C.K. Haun and the other folks at Apple Developer Technical

Support who put together those clever little code snippets which give

folks like me such odd ideas.





Special thanks to the many fine people who beta-tested this software,

including Ken Linger, Chris Reynolds, Michele Marques, Chris Kaltwasser,

James Edward Davis, and Leonard Rosenthol, and to Fred Terry for his

hospitality at the MacScripting mailing list.










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åRevision History






Click on any underlined item in this listing to read more about the revision


it describes.






1.3 (March 6, 1996)

•  Public AWOL Utilities 1.3 release.

•  Allowed menus and menu items to be specified using string parameters,

with or without the corresponding numeric ID parameters.  An error is

returned if the numeric and string parameters do not match.

•  Added support for modifier keys (Shift, Control, Option, Command) in

the Query Menu event.

•  Improved application compatibility by simulating a menu bar click, to

force the application to update its menus, before reading the contents of a

menu in response to a Query Menu or Select Menu Item event.

•  Changed the response to a menu selection with the Caps Lock key down

to a simple Apple event recording action, instead of having the target

application send itself a Menu event to invite recording.

•  Added an error string parameter to the reply event when an error

occurs.

•  Moved the error codes from the -21000 range to the -15950 range, so

that errors are reported sensibly in AppleScript alerts.

•  Rewrote “Menu Events Sample Script” to make use of the new optional

string parameters.



1.2 (October 17, 1994)

•  Public AWOL Utilities 1.2 release.

•  No revisions.



1.1.2 (April 19, 1994)

•  Added support for script recording by forcing high-level-event-aware

applications to send themselves Menu events when the user selects a

menu item and the Caps Lock key is down.

•  Added support for modifier keys (Shift, Control, Option, Command) in

the Select Menu Item event.

•  Removed the nonStandardMenuErr (-21004) code in favor of the new

keyMenuMDEFID parameter in the reply to the Query Menu List event, to

improve compatibility with target applications which use slightly

non-standard menu definition procedures.



1.1.1 (April 11, 1994)

•  Added “Menu Events Scripting Addition” and “Menu Events Sample

Script” in place of “Menu Events 'aete'” resource file.



1.1 (March 28, 1994)

•  Public AWOL Utilities 1.1 release.

•  Documented that Menu Events works with Finder 7.1.2.



1.0.7 (March 13, 1994)

•  Menu Events Help presents a useful message if the user tries to open or

print it when the help server is absent.



1.0.6 (February 27, 1994)

•  Added protection against loading duplicate copies of the extension.



1.0.5 (February 6, 1994)

•  Improved compatibility with At Ease and other applications which flush

mouse-down events when they become active.



1.0.4 (January 30, 1994)

•  If the Shift key is pressed on startup, the extension will not be loaded.

If the Help or Command-? key is pressed, the extension will delay up to

one second to let the user release the key(s).



1.0.3 (January 19, 1994)

•  Added “Menu Events 'aete'” resource file.



1.0.2 (January 11, 1994)

•  Fixed bug which sent the target application into a notification wait state

if it received a Menu event from a remote sender.



1.0.1 (December 31, 1993)

•  Initial AWOL Utilities 1.0.1 release.