@Raul - answer me this first: is a (collection of) "user-defined menus"
(a) an app in its own right? or- (b) an extension of the J app? On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm still not seeing how what you indicate as "the OSX design" makes > sense for any interpreted programming environment which allows user > defined menus. > > -- > Raul > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >> No, @Raul, I was answering Bill's question re OS X features. >> >> The "proper" design for OS X isn't fit for Windows -- and vice-versa. >> You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to know this is (-was) >> intentional on the part of M$. Remember the "look and feel" lawsuit? >> >> On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 3:55 AM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: >>> I'm not quite following your argument, Ian. >>> >>> It seems to me that if all windows owned by the JQt app must all have >>> the same menu that this forbids user-defined menus. >>> >>> Is that really what you are saying J should be doing? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> -- >>> Raul >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> @Bill >>>> >>>>> Is this behavior (sharing menu) a feature of osx in general? >>>> >>>> Yes, definitely. >>>> >>>> In OS X the menubar belongs to the app. Not to the window, as in >>>> MSWin. At least it did when I was programming the Mac in C in the 80s >>>> / 90s. >>>> >>>> Most commercial apps for the Mac, e.g. Firefox, TextEdit, Microsoft >>>> Word, let you create a new window with ⌘N. E.g to edit a second >>>> document. All such windows share the same menubar but window-specific >>>> menu items (⌘C, ⌘V …) work only on the topmost (=active) window. >>>> There's generally a "Window" menu, listing all open windows – the >>>> active window is shown checked: (√). Of course there are apps which >>>> only ever show one window. What the menubar applies-to is never in >>>> doubt. >>>> >>>> J602 doesn't obey the rules. Thus: if you launch the Plot package, it >>>> makes a separate window, but when you click on that window – the >>>> menubar vanishes, leaving only the Apple-supplied menus ("Apple" and >>>> "J"). I guess Plot is pretending to be an independent app? >>>> >>>> By contrast, JQt does obey the rules - up to a point. All windows >>>> owned by JQt, even user-created ones, share the same menubar. However >>>> the Edit and Term windows chop-and-change menus between them (a big >>>> no-no - you should gray them out, not make them vanish.) That totally >>>> bamboozled me, until I worked out what it was playing at. I was >>>> discovering menu items one day and not finding them the next. >>>> >>>> The basic model is that when an app (e.g. DreamWeaver) lets you work >>>> on either a picture or text, say, these aren't 2 different sorts of >>>> window. They're one-and-the-same sort of window, adapted to picture or >>>> text, inapplicable menu items like "Rotate" or "Spelling" being >>>> grayed-out. The menubar is owned by the app, as I said, and is >>>> therefore common to all windows. Apart from J, all Mac apps I've seen >>>> follow this basic model. >>>> >>>> Qt, being cross-platform, is a law unto itself, it seems. >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 12:51 AM, bill lam <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> Is this behavior (sharing menu) a feature of osx in general? >>>>> On Sep 14, 2015 5:17 AM, "Ian Clark" <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> @Chris >>>>>> >>>>>> > Does your repaint include some computation that could have been done up >>>>>> front? >>>>>> >>>>>> It's TABULA. Judged superficially, yes. The toolbar is painted >>>>>> laboriously pixel by pixel, also it's animated. A speedup would be to >>>>>> take a snapshot of the isidraw and use that instead. But it is >>>>>> (planned to be) reconfigurable by the user, so I don't want to get >>>>>> into speedups just yet. Particularly as I'm now badly equipped for >>>>>> cross-platform testing. >>>>>> >>>>>> > How did you do that? >>>>>> >>>>>> Currently a t-table carries free-form info that's displayed in the >>>>>> "Info" tab. It's good in practice to have that optionally in a >>>>>> separate window, so it can be left visible while interacting with the >>>>>> main form, and I've done just that. >>>>>> >>>>>> But when the "Info" window has the focus, instead of the menubar >>>>>> disappearing and being replaced by something vestigial, I can still >>>>>> see the main form's menus. And they all work. >>>>>> >>>>>> TABULA also optionally creates a "plot" window – and the same remarks >>>>>> apply. Bill thinks it's a bug not a feature. But jwplot wouldn't be so >>>>>> useful within an app if it hid the app's menus. >>>>>> >>>>>> > I suppose we should allow redefining the menubar on the fly. >>>>>> >>>>>> I guess most J coders won't need the facility to reconfigure a menu >>>>>> after every user interaction. Only people like me, trying to write >>>>>> professional-looking cross-platform software. Perhaps I simply >>>>>> shouldn't be using Jwd, but working directly with Qt widgets? I can't >>>>>> be far short of my 100th GUI. >>>>>> >>>>>> wd 'set menuitem text "New Caption" ' -would be nice. But destroying >>>>>> and rewriting the whole menubar ought to be fast enough. It is >>>>>> intuitive (using rplc) and totally flexible. >>>>>> >>>>>> Ian >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 3:25 PM, chris burke <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >> My form takes a noticeable time to repaint. I don't want to do that. >>>>>> > >>>>>> > I am a little surprised by this. Does your repaint include some >>>>>> computation >>>>>> > that could have been done up front? >>>>>> > >>>>>> >> But I see with JQt it's possible to define two separate forms for the >>>>>> same >>>>>> > app. If one of them specifies no menus, it lets you see the menus of >>>>>> > the >>>>>> > other form – even when it's got focus! >>>>>> > >>>>>> > How did you do that? >>>>>> > >>>>>> > I suppose we should allow redefining the menubar on the fly. >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > On 13 September 2015 at 05:32, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> > >>>>>> >> My form takes a noticeable time to repaint. I don't want to do that. >>>>>> >> >>>>>> >> But I see with JQt it's possible to define two separate forms for the >>>>>> >> same app. If one of them specifies no menus, it lets you see the menus >>>>>> >> of the other form – even when it's got focus! At least, it does on the >>>>>> >> Mac (…under Snow Leopard). >>>>>> >> >>>>>> >> I conjecture it's possible to split my form into a menu-less and a >>>>>> >> menus-only form. The latter will be a lot less pain to recreate – and >>>>>> >> easily reconfigured like this: >>>>>> >> >>>>>> >> wd MYMENUSONLY rplc 'Repeat Last Action' ; 'Repeat "Delete Line"' >>>>>> >> >>>>>> >> The same trick will let me offer an up-to-the-minute MRU list attached >>>>>> >> to the File menu. >>>>>> >> >>>>>> >> Maybe there are gotchers. Maybe it won't work on all platforms. But >>>>>> >> it's worth me doing some experiments. Anyone care to try it with >>>>>> >> MSWin? (I can see a sticky "fellow traveller" being needed for the >>>>>> >> main window, consisting only of a menubar.) >>>>>> >> >>>>>> >> On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 2:49 AM, chris burke <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >> > You can create a new form to replace the old, positioning exactly >>>>>> >> > over >>>>>> >> the >>>>>> >> > old. This should happen fast enough to be unnoticeable. >>>>>> >> > >>>>>> >> > I cannot think of examples in J8, but this was done in J6, for >>>>>> >> > example >>>>>> >> with >>>>>> >> > the Find and Replace dialogs. >>>>>> >> > >>>>>> >> > On 11 September 2015 at 15:56, bill lam <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >> > >>>>>> >> >> I think these functions are not implemented. >>>>>> >> >> On Sep 12, 2015 4:50 AM, "Ian Clark" <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >> >> >>>>>> >> >> > With jwd in JQt, how do I change the text of a given item in an >>>>>> >> >> > existing set of menus? >>>>>> >> >> > >>>>>> >> >> > E.g. to state precisely what action I'm offering to Undo / >>>>>> >> >> > Repeat / >>>>>> >> etc? >>>>>> >> >> > >>>>>> >> >> > An allied problem is to add items to an existing menu, e.g. to >>>>>> provide >>>>>> >> >> > a MRU facility. >>>>>> >> >> > >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >> >> > For information about J forums see >>>>>> >> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>> >> >> > >>>>>> >> >> >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >> >> For information about J forums see >>>>>> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>> >> >> >>>>>> >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >> > For information about J forums see >>>>>> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>> >> >>>>>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
