[net.micro.mac] Icons like the Finder uses.

gal@cs.nott.ac.uk (Graeme Lunt) (08/22/86)

	In the near future I'm probably going to be writing a Mac application
that does a lot of things similar to what the Finder does. The main thing I
need to be able to do is to position the familiar icon/filename on the screen.
(Speed is not a great consideration as this will only be a prototype.)

	At the moment I can see two possible ways of doing it :-

	i) Use the List Manager with my own element drawing routine.

	ii) Use the Control Manager to define my own controls.

	Option ii) seems preferable as the List Manager limits the position
of the object to discrete cells - ie no overlapping elements like the Finder.

	I believe there was some discussion a couple of months back on the
topic of "controls within icons" but I seem to have missed it. Excuse me if
I'm going over old ground.

	Before I start in earnest on doing this I thought that anybody who
has maybe tried/done this before may be able to give me some pointers.
	Also any hints on how the Finder does it all would be gratefully
appreciated as well. (If you are allowed to disclose such things)
	I'm not into writing machine code (yet!) but any source, partial
source, rough notes etc. would be very welcome.

Graeme Lunt
University of Nottingham

allison@convexs.UUCP (08/26/86)

Pretty darn recently, gal@nott-cs.UUCP wrote:

>   In the near future I'm probably going to be writing a Mac application
>that does a lot of things similar to what the Finder does. The main thing I
>need to be able to do is to position the familiar icon/filename on the screen.
>(Speed is not a great consideration as this will only be a prototype.)
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sounds EXACTLY like the Finder to me!  :-(

Brian Allison         {allegra, ihnp4, uiucdcs, ctvax}!convex!allison
Convex Computer Corp.
Richardson, TX