andyp@treehouse.UUCP (Andy Peterman) (11/26/90)
I'm looking for any information on how to create a floating window that stays on top of all windows of ALL application layers under MultiFinder. I want to be able to put this window somewhere on the screen and have it accessible at all times and never be hidden by any other window. I know this is fairly easy within a single application, but I'm not sure how to do this within MultiFinder. While my goal is to have this work under 7.0, I'd also like it to work on 6.0.x. I'm not at all against using unsupported and undocumented features and traps (such as the rumored Layer Manager), so any hints would be appreciated. Thanks in advance... -- Andy Peterman | Opinions expressed treehouse!andyp@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com | are definitely those of (916) 273-4569 | my employer!
hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edu (David Hairston) (11/26/90)
[andyp@treehouse.UUCP (Andy Peterman) writes:] [] I'm looking for any information on how to create a floating window that [] stays on top of all windows of ALL application layers under MultiFinder. [] I want to be able to put this window somewhere on the screen and have it [] accessible at all times and never be hidden by any other window. me too ... whadya mean you were here first??? seriously, it doesn't seem like you could enforce this unless you invoke some strange set of user/system/machine priorities. perhaps that was your intent (i.e. an app that only you would use). okay, this doesn't directly answer your question but perhaps you'd do better to reconsider your approach (i.e. if you need to display info at all times then consider the approach of the Spy! init and modify the screen display [not recommended] else you could "blast" your info to a hopefully unused portion of the screen. in the latter case you could trigger off of some trap). sorry, i don't have to code to share ... -dave- hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edu
minow@mountn.dec.com (Martin Minow) (11/27/90)
<HAIRSTON.90Nov26075319@henry.ece.cmu.edu> hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edu (David Hairston) and [andyp@treehouse.UUCP (Andy Peterman) ask for code to create floating windows on the Mac. Two solutions: -- an article on floating windows was published in MacTutor a few years ago -- look in the collection volumes. You can extract the floating window source fairly easily. You'll have to put calls to the package here and there in your event loop. -- The Think C class library has a floating window class, making the problem pretty trivial to solve. I was able to get a floating "splash screen" working in a half hour. Look in the Art Class project's "about" function for an example. In both cases, the window is part of your application and will be hidden or covered by other applications. If you want do force a window on the screen at all times, you'll have problems (will it cover a modal dialog?) and shouldn't expect the program to work on future Mac os releases. Martin Minow minow@bolt.enet.dec.com
anders@verity.com (Anders Wallgren) (11/27/90)
Volume 4 of the MacTutor collections has the article on floating windows and tear-off menus. anders