[comp.sys.mac] On line Technotes

stores@unix.SRI.COM (Matt Mora) (12/14/89)

I've put together a prototype of an online version
of the Macintosh technotes thru an fkey. Is any one 
interested is such a hack? I think its a total shame that 
to get an online version of the tech notes you have to
run hypercard. You would think DTS could put together
at least a DA.

What my Fkey Does:

When invoked, it brings up a dialog box with an edit field
some buttons and a scrolling list. It uses the TN 0 index
"Index by Subject" format. Type in the field the topic
in question.( ie "AppleTalk") It will scan the list 
and  show in the scrolling list all technotes that are
in the Apple talk manager section or have Apple talk in the 
title of the tech note preceded by the TN number. (that
way if you don't want to keep the actual technotes online
taking up all that disk space you at least have an online index) 

Select one of the lines in the scrolling list and if its
available, (a file name TN "XXX") then a button called show note
is hilited. If you click on this button the Tech note will appear
in a scrolling window.

Right now I am using styled text edit to show the tech note a page at
a time. Pictures will be supported. (at least like hypercard where
the pictures can be displayed separately).

The Questions:

Does anyone have any code that I can use to display the text
in a scrolling window? TE is ok but the text doesn't have to be edited.
Also I want the ability update the technote by replacing the file
with a new text file, not having to depend on some installer program
to update the technotes. With styled te I have to do a select all in 
MW II copy it to the clipboard and the save the file with a special
program that saves the text in the Data fork and  put the Style info
in the resource fork. I would like users to be able to download the
tech notes from the Net and just rename them as TN XXX and put them
in a tech note folder.

Does anybody have code that will search the system folder to find
see if a certain folder exists?

Any help would be great.

(I'm using LSP)

The Fkey is working now but its looking for the tech notes in the
system folder. It would be a real mess to have all two hundred and
fifty something files in the system folder. :-)

I really busy and don't have to much time to work on this. If
any one has some code examples that they could share, please let
me know.

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Matthew Mora
SRI International                       stores@unix.sri.com
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