About pulldown menus with Mac OS (was:Re: [ANN] How-To stack #008 How to build a menu on the fly)

[Eric Chatonet]

Hi Jim,

I take the opportunity to tell you my admiration for your stacks.
Trigo gurus are amazing :-)

As for your question (within Mac OS):
You said that "the icon in the tool box looks like a pull down menu,  
but it is an impostor"
In fact, I think there are not any puldown menu according to such a  
presentation in the Mac OS interface :-)
With Mac OS the guide lines say that a menu can be associated with a  
button (check any finder window):
This button must have an icon with a little triangle and a hilited  
status on mouseDown.
So, the tool icon is meaningless...

To get this, I use in fact 2 buttons: the first one is a 2 states  
button with a home made icon and I popup the second one at the right  
place (in a mouseDown handler with MacOS and a mouseUp handler with  
all other platforms according to what is expected by the user :-)
See one of my previous post (05/17) named "Rép : UI challenge: icon  
menu"

On the other hand, if you use the menu builder, automatic pulldown  
menu buttons are Win like on Mac OS.
If you set (for an ordinary rectangle button):

AutoHilite     true
ArmBorder    true
TextAlign    center
ShowBorder    false

You get a win like pulldown menu  button :-)

Best regards from Paris,

Eric Chatonet.

Le 19 mai 05 à 01:02, Jim Hurley a écrit :

> Eric,
>
> Thanks for this stack. I will have to study it to get the full  
> benefit. I have never taken advantage of the sub-menu features in  
> Run Rev.
>
> But first a general question. Why doesn't a pull down menu look  
> like a pull down menu?
>
> The icon in the tool box looks like a pull down menu, but it is an  
> impostor.  You pull it on to the screen and it is transformed into  
> a simple rectangle. I'm realize that I must not be the first to  
> notice this. What gives?

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