jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) (02/28/91)
In article <49688@apple.Apple.COM> nerm@Apple.COM (Dean Yu) writes: > As Larry said, 7.0-friendly/studly/compliant/whatever-term-it-is-we're-using- >these-days applications are allowed to put their own help items under the >balloon menu. There are even calls in the Help Manager that will tell the >application how many items are in the menu already, so it doesn't need to >rely on it's items being in a fixed place. This is incredibly handy in case >we ever decide to put more items in there. > Of course, marketing dictates that you don't want to have two different >versions of the same product for two different versions of the operating system >I'm guessing that most companies will try to have one version of their product >that can run under both 6.0 and 7.0, and since there's no help menu under 6.0, >apps will probably put their help items somewhere else. Gaaakkk!!! Bletch!!! I must respectfully disagree with Dean's assessment :-) Apple has provided a simple and elegant way for programmers to determine what system services are available at runtime (_Gestalt). I maintain that there is no reason to forgo use of the Help Manager (IMHO one of the VERY BEST new features of System 7) in order to remain System 6-compatible. Let's say the application has a "Help" item in the Apple menu under System 6, which activates help code when chosen. The programmer could easily check for the Help Manager and then add an item to the Help menu also (or instead), which activates the very same code, thus solving the problem. Of course, Microsoft may not agree :-) -- John Cavallino | EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145 Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637 "Opinions, my boy. Just opinions" | Telephone: 312-702-6900