Menu manager/switch problem

[Ken Ray]

Well said!

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/ 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: use-revolution-admin at lists.runrev.com 
> [mailto:use-revolution-admin at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of 
> Richard Gaskin
> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 5:00 PM
> To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Subject: Re: Menu manager/switch problem
> 
> 
> Ken Norris wrote:
> 
> >> You are thinking too Mac-centric. No other platform moves 
> its About 
> >> menu around like the Mac. Everywhere else, the About is under the 
> >> Help menu. It is a convenience that Revolution 
> transparently handles 
> >> the various positions of the Macintosh About menu for you, 
> since the 
> >> position is different even between OS 9 and OS X. By placing the 
> >> About item under the Help menu, your stack will display 
> properly on 
> >> any OS and you won't ever have to think about it.
> > ----------
> > It's just that there is nothing in the docs to tell us this is what 
> > happens, so I wasn't expecting it. There's probably other 
> stuff like 
> > that, too. I'm looking for that list.
> 
> I remember how hard it was for me to learn SuperCard when I 
> came from a background in HyperCard, and years later how hard 
> Ken, Christopher Watson, and myself worked to deliver one of 
> the most comprehensive sets of docs for an authoring tool 
> ever at the time, only to find how hard it was even after we 
> delivered them for folks to readily find everything they 
> needed.  With complex systems like authoring tools, 
> experience is the best teacher.
> 
> Since I came into Rev from MetaCard years before, I'm less 
> familiar with Rev's docs, but generally find them far better 
> than MC's, and roughly on par with SuperCard's (there's a 
> great many more tokens to document in Rev, so the Rev docs 
> have generally more stuff overall).
> 
> Knowing Jeanne's thoroughness (it was, after all, her 
> HyperCard book that we used as the inspiration for form and 
> breadth when we rewote SuperCard's docs), I took a look in 
> the docs to see what I could find on this subject.
> 
> Here's what I did:
> 
> 1. In Rev's menu bar, I chose Help->Revolution Documentation
> 
> 2. In the list on the front card of that stack, I chose 
> "Menus", which brings up a list of topics on the right.  In 
> that list, assuming I had no experience with Rev, I simply 
> chose the first item, "About...menus and the menu bar", 
> thinking it might provide a good overview from which I could 
> explore other details as needed.
> 
> 3. In that section is a subsection titled "Menu Bars on Mac 
> OS and OS X Systems", which describes the behavior in 
> question, with more detail and more concisely than even the 
> discussion here on this list.
> 
> 
> Ken and I once had the pleasure of working under the same 
> manager, a man of impecible character and unusual insight.  I 
> found myself frustrated with learning Gain Momentum, since it 
> was not only a larger and more complex xTalk than I'd known 
> before (20 volumes of manuals stacked three feet high), but 
> it also required me to learn Unix at the same time.  It was a 
> lot to bite off at once, and after coming from years of solid 
> SuperCard mastery I was frustrated with finding myself nearly 
> completely ignorant, starting at the very bottom of the 
> learning curve all over again.  I took my concerns to my 
> manager, and here's what he told me:
> 
>    If you plant a seed today and pour ten thousand gallons of water
>    on it, you still won't have a tree tommorrow.
> 
> Some things simply take time and patience, and learning is 
> definitely more of a process than an event.  This is 
> especially difficult when coming from another tool, and 
> compounded when that tool rests in the relative comfort of a 
> single operating system:  For years you've grown into a 
> comfortable mastery of the tool, and over time the "learning 
> muscle" in some respects atrophies.  
> 
> Observing myself with both learning new tools and with 
> physical therapy after a hiking accident last year, I know 
> how hard it is to reverse atrophy. But as my physical 
> therapist reminded me, "movement begets movement":  every 
> small effort made in a direction of growth has a compounded 
> effect over time.  Initially there are few measurable 
> results, and such work begins as an act of faith and will.  
> But over time, with the encouragement of others who've 
> crossed that mountain before you, you have to trust that it's 
> achievable.  And after a while your results will provide all 
> the encouragement you'll need, and may even serve to inspire 
> others as they begin the same path.
> 
> So please be patient with yourself, and try to be patient 
> with the docs. They're not perfect, but frankly they are 
> among the most comprehensive you'll find, even when compared 
> to the big publishers like Adobe and Macromedia.
> 
> In nearly evry case, I'll stake my reputation on the 
> assertion that the topic is covered in Jeanne's docs.  And 
> for those few cases where a topic is not in a clear place or 
> even more rare, not covered at all, a brief note to her will 
> see it corrected as soon as possible, and a note to this list 
> will put you on the right track immediately.
> 
> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin 
>  Fourth World Media Corporation
>  Developer of WebMerge 2.2: Publish any database on any site  
> ___________________________________________________________
>  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com
>  Tel: 323-225-3717                       AIM: FourthWorldInc
> 
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com 
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-> revolution
>