Rev Menus [was Re: Location of stack]

[Mark Wieder]

Jacque-

Monday, May 17, 2010, 9:54:58 AM, you wrote:

> I'm not disagreeing, I'm just wondering what better way would be
> available. I don't personally have any trouble with menu builder, I've
> found it to be solid and reliable, but I won't argue if others do. I use
> menu builder in virtually every project as a quick way to set up a 
> menubar with skeleton scripts, and I find it a very convenient shortcut.
> I won't argue with you about the other two features. ;)

You've got years of experience working with this. For you this is
simple pattern recognition: "I've been in this situation before and
here is how I deal with it". It's like playing chess where there are
standard responses to known situations. I'm not arguing that the menu
builder isn't "solid and reliable", just that the way the rev engine
deals with menubars needs rethinking.

> Okay, but to be fair, the "long" explanation was part of a tutorial on
> how to convert HC stacks, and the actual info about how menus work was
> only a couple of paragraphs in that. Most of the info is an explanation

Point taken. The fact that there needs to be an explanation at all,
though, and that it's something that comes up frequently on the list,
is an indicator that something needs work.

> What's your response to those who don't get how externals work? Or
> groups and backgrounds? Or the message hierarchy? Aren't these all 
> things we need to understand to work with Rev?

There are "things we need to understand" and there are things that
just ain't right.

> At any rate, as I said, if anyone can come up with a better solution for
> managing Mac menus then we should propose it to the team. The current
> system may not be as transparent to newcomers as we'd like, but it does
> work, so it's likely to remain unaddressed unless we can suggest a 
> better way.

Maybe we can convince Damien to write "NativeMenus"? <g>

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net