How to Disable the Preference and About Box Items

[Richard Gaskin]

David Burgun wrote:
>>> Yes, but this isn't an Apple/Mac problem. I don't care if the 
>>> preference menu is enabled or disabled, but I want it's visible 
>>> status to reflect it's state, which is not what happens. I disable 
>>> then Edit Menu, but the preferences item remains enabled, BUT it 
>>> won't generate a menuPick event.
>>>
>>> This effectively mean that you cannot disable the edit or help menu's 
>>> under MacOS X!
>>
>> Under what circumstances would you want to remove the user's access to 
>> Preferences or Help?
>
> I don't!
> 
> I want the Edit Menu Disabled, the Preference item isn't in the Edit 
> menu! It shows as enabled in the Applications Menu, but, disabling the 
> edit menu stops the menuPick message from being sent (to either the Edit 
> or Help Buttons), so whe you select preferences it does nothing!

You're in luck: Apple says you shouldn't disable the entire menu, only 
the items within the menu:

     ADC Home > Reference Library > Documentation > User Experience
     > Apple Human Interface Guidelines > Menus > Menu Behavior:

     Even if all of the items in a menu or submenu are unavailable,
     the menu or submenu title is not dimmed. The user can still
     open the menu, but all of its items are dimmed to indicate
     that these items are not available in the present context.

<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/chapter_16_section_2.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000356-TPXREF119>


Since you never wanted to prevent the user from accessing Preferences 
anyway, this will get you want you want for the low cost of a couple 
milliseconds:

   on DisableEditItems
     repeat with i = 1 to (the number of lines of btn "Edit"-1)
       disable menuitem i of btn "Edit"
     end repeat
   end DisableEditItems

Instant HIG-compliant Edit menu for all supported platforms in one move.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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