Mouse messages while down

[Jerry Daniels]

  > Galaxy always shows the object name and path of the object it is  
hovering above. I think mousemove may be part of it.

This is an interesting topic to me. One that doesn't necessarily deal  
with Sarah's original question, but for the sake of accuracy--and  
possible interest--I want to report how Galaxy has has in the past  
and is presently figuring out "what object is beneath the pointer?"

The "cursory" inspection that Galaxy 1.5 has done to detect what  
object you're "over" came from Galaxy's "pinging"  or sending out  
periodic messages constantly. Why not just use mouseMove? We pinged  
so that Galaxy could also detect when you were above the title bar of  
a stack and then report the stack name and path in the status fields  
of Galaxy Bar. The mouseMove tracking would not report when the  
pointer was in the title bar of a stack.

We also used the "ping method" so users could hold down command +  
option to then edit of the script of an object. This is only needed  
because Rev running on the Mac cannot detect the depression of the  
modifier keys (command, option, shift, control) without also  
depressing a "typeable" key. But even on Windows, it is sometimes  
difficult to get Revolution to report a keydown if there isn't an  
editable field around in an open stack.

You'll notice I am using the past tense in describing the ping method  
of object inspection. We switched over to a new approach to solving  
this problem because "pinging" was very inefficient, especially on  
older, slower machines.

The more recent versions of Galaxy 1.5 use the "pepper ping"  
approach. With this method, cursory and in-depth inspection occurs  
only when the mouse is moving AND up to 5 seconds after the mouse  
stops moving. When the mouse stops moving, Galaxy "peppers" the  
object beneath the pointer with a series of pings (send  
"glxInspectObject" in 250 millisecs) over a period of 5 seconds to  
see if you're going to hold down some modifier keys and also in case  
you moved the pointer to the title bar of a stack.

How does one detect if the mouse has stopped moving? By canceling  
messages! (See script below.)

The "pepper" method (invented after drinking a Dr. Pepper soft  
drink?) results is far less system activity, near instant reporting  
of the object name and path in Galaxy Bar, and very snappy in-depth  
inspection that leads to editing the object. The only time a veteran  
user of Galaxy might notice our change in methods is when using no- 
click inspection to edit the script of an object, and mouse has been  
stationary for longer than 5 seconds--something that doesn't seem to  
happen as often as one would think.

Here is the crucial code from our front script (distilled for our  
purposes here) that does does the pepper ping thing:

on mouseMove theH,theV
     put the cGlxInspect of stack "revGalaxy inspector" into doInspect
     if doInspect is true then
         glxSendStaggeredInspectMsg
     end IF
     pass mouseMove
end mouseMove

on glxSendStaggeredInspectMsg
     -- get rid of lingering messages for efficiency...
     -- and to detect if mouse has stopped moving:
     glxCancelPendingInspectMsgs
     -- respond right away:
     send "glxInspectObject" to me in 10 millisecs
     -- begin the "peppering":
     put 0 into theNoMillisecs
     put 250 into theInterval
     repeat for 19
         add theInterval to theNoMillisecs
         send "glxInspectObject" to me in theNoMillisecs millisecs
     end repeat
end glxSendStaggeredInspectMsg

on glxCancelPendingInspectMsgs
     -- luckily, Rev does all this very fast, indeed:
     put the pendingmessages into thePendingMessages
     filter thePendingMessages with "*,glxScriptEdit,*"
     repeat for each line thePendingMessage in thePendingMessages
         -- use token and don't worry about itemDel:
         put token 1 of thePendingMessage into theMsgID
         cancel theMsgID
     end repeat
end glxCancelPendingInspectMsgs

on glxInspectObject
     -- get long id of object, even if pointer is in title bar:
     put glxGetObjectBeneathPointer() into theObjectID
     edit the script of theObjectID
end glxInspectObject

Best,

Jerry Daniels

Makers of Galaxy 1.5
http://www.daniels-mara.com/new_in_galaxy_1_5.htm



On Mar 17, 2007, at 11:03 PM, Stephen Barncard wrote:

> Jerry figured it out a while ago -- Galaxy always shows the object  
> name and path of the object it is hovering above. I think mousemove  
> may be part of it.
>
> from the docs: "Sent periodically while the mouse button is being  
> held down."
>
>
>
> this gets close to what you want I think.
>
> ON mouseMove
>          put the target
> END mouseMove
>
>
>
>> It still seems odd that I can't get the data I need without having  
>> to do this.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Sarah
>>
>
> -- 
>
>
> stephen barncard
> s a n  f r a n c i s c o
> - - -  - - - - - - - - -
>
>
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