For Immediate Release

*-) Digital Alchemy upgrades Mercutio MDEF to support MacOS 8 (-*

Contact:
Digital Alchemy
P.O.Box 9632
Stanford, CA 94309
(650) 851-0723
http://www.digitalalchemy.com

Palo Alto, CA -- 15 OCT 1997: Digital Alchemy is pleased to announce the
release of the Mercutio MDEF version 1.3.4. The Mercutio MDEF is a Menu
DEFinition resource that allow developers to easily and elegantly extend
the power of their application menus. Mercutio allow menu items to have
multiple-modifier key-equivalents (e.g. shift-command-C), custom icons,
item callbacks, and other goodies. Mercutio menus may also contain "dynamic
menu items" that allow a single menu item to change depending on what
modifiers are held down. Dynamic menu items keep menus short while allowing
the flexibility of keyboard shortcuts.

Version 1.3.4 adds compatibility with MacOS 8, the Appearance Manager
(including Platinum Theme), improves compatibility with Kaleidoscope, and
fixes a number of bugs. Mercutio works under System 6, System 7, and MacOS
8, and does not require any external system extensions. Mercutio can be
downloaded from the Digital Alchemy web site:

http://www.digitalalchemy.com/mercutio/

Mercutio features include:

- Support for all 4 modifier keys (command, shift, option, control)
- Support for non-printing keys (function keys, page up/down,
arrow keys, etc)
- Graphic icons for non-printing keys: non-printing key equivalents
such as page up/ down, home/help, etc. can be drawn as text OR
as icons that look like the keys on the extended keyboard.
- Dynamic items: items whose contents change depending on what
modifier keys are being held down (e.g. when the option key is
held down, Save becomes Save All).
- Application callback routine to let you decide on the fly what
the item contents should be.
- Support for icon suites, small and large icons, and SICNs in
hierarchical menu items.
- Support for window font/size: Mercutio now correctly draws popup menus
in the current font and size. This means you can use Mercutio for
Geneva 9-pt popup menus and the like.
- Support for WorldScript. Mercutio now supports menus in non-western
scripts (Japanese, Arabian, etc), and correctly draws under
right-to-left system text alignment.
- User-definable style mapping: developer determines which style
bits are used as feature flags
- System 7's Balloon Help, True Gray, color menus, etc.
- Color menus.

The Mercutio MDEF works under System 6.0.4 or later, with or without Color
QuickDraw. Mercutio is fully compatible with System 7, and supports all the
features of the System MDEF. Integrating the MDEF into a typicaly Macintosh
program takes about 15 minutes.

The documentation for Mercutio follows the style of Apple's "Inside
Macintosh" manuals, and is in Adobe's Acrobat format.

Developers may use Mercutio free of charge as long as they include certain
credits in the About box and documentation, and supply Digital Alchemy with
a copy of the final program (including future upgrades for as long as the
software uses Mercutio.) See "Mercutio Software License.pdf" for details on
terms of use. Other licensing terms are available.

Mercutio is copyright (c) 1992-1997 by Ramon M. Felciano