dancing popup menus

[Richard Gaskin]

Meitnik at aol.com wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Anyone else having the IDE popup menus suddenly change to someone's else 
> popup menus within the IDE?? Its driving me crazy. I cant find any pattern so far. 
> I try to force IDE to make up its mind but sometimes i just have to close the 
> IDE and reopen it. Any work arounds welcomed.

I've seen this in the MC IDE, and have had to modify it to help prevent 
it.  However scripting style plays a role here, so an IDE can only do so 
much to preserve itself:

The issue is a Transcript convenience which allows you to refer to menu 
button objects by simply using the keyword "menu" as a shorthand for a 
complete button reference, so you can say things like:

   put tMyMenuItems into menu "Edit"

...instead of:

   put tMyMenuItems into btn "Edit" of stack "MyMenuBar"

When using the shorter "menu" reference, it assumes you're taking about 
a button of that name within the group which is currently the 
defaultMenuBar.

However, if you have an app which changes the defaultMenuBar, unless 
scripts check to see which defaultMenuBar is active then modifying menu 
contents with the shorter "menu" reference may modify the wrong object.

To correct this in the MC IDE I've changed the scripts to use only 
explicit object references (the second form shown above).  While the 
"menu" form can be a great convenience when porting HC stacks, that 
convenience comes at the price of ambiguity.  More explicit references 
to menu buttons will make for more robust systems.

I don't know if the Rev IDE uses the "menu" form in their scripts, or if 
they use only explicit references like we now use with the MC IDE.  If 
Rev uses only explicit references it may be the case that one of your 
scripts or perhaps those in a plugin are not checking the defaultMenuBar 
before modifying things, so the interpreter faithfully does what it's 
told even if it may not be what you want. :)

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
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  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com