March 94 - Letters
LETTERS
FLOATING BUGS
I liked Issue 15's article on floating windows and have successfully implemented your routines. I did,
however, find one bug. Your routine HideReferencedWindow can leave the process's window list
pointing to a deallocated window when there are no floating windows.
-- Chester Murphy
Thanks for pointing this out. It's fixed -- along with some other small bugs -- in the code on this issue's CD.
(It's been fixed since Issue 16's CD.)
-- Dean Yu
PRAGMATIC SOLUTION
Floating windows is one of my favorite subjects. I tried to compile your WindowExtension example,
using THINK C 6.0. My first problem was with USES68KINLINES. THINK C checks the
#pragma parameter with the function declaration. So I tried to use A1 and D0 as parameters, but
then I needed a few more #pragmas for the activate handlers. I still don't have a working version.
Also, could you explain why we need CallUniversalProc? I'm quite happy with the C syntax.
Thank you very much for doing such a good job on the article.
-- Robert Puyol
The use of USES68KINLINES has changed since Issue 15 went to press. Currently, #pragma parameters
aren't
used any more, so you shouldn't have any problems using the header file with THINK C. Additionally, the
new version of the floating windows code uses the universal header files that are discussed in the "Making the
Leap to PowerPC" article in Issue 16 and are on this issue's CD.
We recommend using CallUniversalProc in your source code (or one of its specific variants, like
CallActivateHandlerProc in the floating windows code) to allow for greater portability of your source code
between platforms. For a detailed explanation of using CallUniversalProc
and UniversalProcPtrs, check out the aforementioned article in Issue 16.
-- Dean Yu
DESKTOP FILES REDUX
I liked Issue 15's Puzzle Page, about the damaged desktop files. I've seen this bug often, since I fix a
lot of damaged hard disks.
You probably know this, but if the desktop files get hosed in a certain way, rebuilding them in the
Finder won't fix them. You have to delete them (or rename them) to get the Finder to build new
files from scratch.
AutoDoubler comes with a little utility called Desktop Reset just for deleting the desktop files.
-- David Shayer
I didn't know this when I wrote that Puzzle Page, but you're right. When the desktop file gets damaged to the
point where the File Manager can't open it, the Finder can't rebuild the file, so you have to throw it away or
rename it.
Thanks for the feedback.
-- Konstantin Othmer
IF MORE OF YOU DON'T WRITE, WE'LL HAVE TO START MAKING THEM UP!
We welcome timely letters to the editors, especially from readers reacting to articles that we publish in develop. Letters
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