Updating menus (was Re: Clipboard madness)

[Richard Gaskin]

I've taken the liberty of renamin this thread, as it ultimately seems 
more related to enabling/disabling menu items (and hence their 
associated keyboard shortcuts) than the workings of the Clipboard 
itself.  For thread-name purists, please forgive.

This issue is critical for all designers who want to make HIG-compliant 
apps, and in a way it's good news that Rev's IDE is adversely affected 
as it raises the visibility of the issue.

The challenge with updating menu items is making sure you trap all 
possible things that might affect them.

Some are easier than others.  For example, if your interface allows the 
user to cut text, then you know that you should enable the Paste item 
when that happens.

But if the user has text on the Clipboard from another app, how does 
your app know without something horribly inefficient like polling?

It might be nice to have a clipboardChanged message -- would that be 
appropriate, or overkill?

What other changes or additions to the language might we see to simplify 
updating menu items?

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com