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Text File | 1990-12-26 | 17.8 KB | 367 lines | [TEXT/KAHL]

THE QUICK SKINNY ON 4PLUS 1.4... This document is for users of older versions of 4Plus. It basically is a list of the enhancements and bug fixes implemented since the first release. Starting with version 1.4 it occurred to me that it would be nice to preface each list of changes with the version number within which such changes were made, so I have done this. This occurs somewhere down below, so users of version 1.3 can skip directly to that. /* THE OPTIONS MENU */ It's now in the menu bar, by popular demand. And since it's in the menu bar, there's no need for it to be invoked like the other 4Plus menus, so you won't find it listed in the configuration dialog. /* THE OTHER MENUS */ You could always configure a menu to be invoked by wInZoomIn, wInGoAway, and wInGrow. Now, you can actually invoke the menu. Before you couldn't. The wNoHit configuration now excludes the menu bar. In other words, configuring a menu to be invoked by clicking outside of a window won't interfere with using the menu bar. /* TRASHING MACROS */ No longer available. A questionable feature to begin with. You want to delete macros? Invoke ‘Macro Record’ twice in a row and then type the key assignment associated with the macro you want to delete. /* USING MACROS */ Fixed a bug that didn't allow for macros to call other macros. Also, a macro assignment's priority has been changed. A macro assignment will override a 4Plus command. And if you're using some other macro utility, the utility's assignment will override 4Plus's assignment. Macros are saved and restored in this version. Macro assignments can be listed and changed via the configuration dialog in this version. Double clicking on an assignment will allow you to edit the macro. A new command called ‘Examine Assignment’ will allow you to edit a macro without having to go through the configuration dialog. Simply invoke the ‘Examine Assignment’ command, and invoke the desired macro assignment. You get a macro editing dialog. /* MACHEADERS MENU */ Fixed a bug that prevented invoking the MacHeaders menu from within a source file contained in a project that DID NOT use MacsBug symbols (from THINK C's option dialog). /* SEARCHES */ You can now assign searches to a key, like macros. Read the docs for more info. /* WINDOW POSITIONS */ Assigning window positions to a key, like macros. Read the docs for more info. /* LAUNCHING DOCUMENTS FROM THE FINDER */ Fixed a bug that prevented you from opening a THINK C file from the Finder under MF. /* USING DIFFERENT VOLUMES */ Fixed a bug that prevented 4Plus from operating correctly in the event that THINK C and the current project resided on different volumes. This affected both the browsing menu facility as well as updating the resource header file. /* RECOGNIZING THINK C */ Changed the way 4Plus detects a THINK C launch. Previous versions would look at the creator bytes of a launched application. The current version now looks at the application name. You can change the name 4Plus looks for by observing that the 'STR ' #129 resource contains the specification used to recognize THINK C. /* FIND DIALOG MENUS */ Two pop up menus available within the Find dialog when the grep option is enabled. Read all about it in the docs. /* HEAP MANAGEMENT */ Fixed a bug where the CODE resource was getting loaded and locked on startup. This little stinker was put in so as to allow a user to do an option-command doubleclick on the 4Plus icon from the Finder and get the configuration dialog. And I completely forgot about it. Here I am playing around with somebody else's application heap and I don't even bother to look at it. Duh. /* THE MARK QUEUE */ Choosing the Trash Mark Queue item from the options menu no longer trashes THINK C. I'm also beginning to wonder about the mark queue. I never use the damn thing. Maybe individual marks would be better, eh? Each assignable to yet another keystroke? Or how about a mark stack? Once you go to a mark, it disappears. What do you think? /* MARK KEYS AND THE MARK STACK */ Different implementations of the whole mark business. Read all about it in the docs. /* SUPERCLOCK, ON CUE, AND 4PLUS */ INIT incompatibilities have become something of a fact of life for the avid Mac enthusiast, and I guess when you undertake writing an INIT it would be better to dispense with the fantasy of being the only programmer in the universe whose INIT plays well with others, thereby saving yourself the inevitable heartbreak that will befall you once you learn that it is, in fact, not so. I've tested 4Plus using a variety of INIT configurations, and it almost always works well regardless. The only instance of a problem occurs with when both SuperClock 3.8 and On Cue 1.3 are being used. And I can't figure out why. The problem will occur when attempting tolaunch another application using On Cue. Every now and then, On Cue will allow you to select the application, but as soon as you release the mouse and the menu disappears, the Mac freezes. This is under MultiFinder 6.1b9 and System 6.0.5. Removing SuperClock will fix this. Don't ask me why, and of course, removing 4Plus will fix it too! I used Jasik's Debugger to take a look at the whole business and it tells me that the only patch SuperClock is patching is DrawMenuBar. Which makes me wonder how it is that SuperClock is getting those mouseDown events to toggle the clock settings. And what it's doing thereafter. I understand that there's a new version of SuperClock out, 3.9 I guess. Maybe it's a fix. /* TEXT SELECTION ANOMALY */ Fixed a bug wherein under certain circumstances selecting text would invert a portionof the scroll bar. /* UPDATE RSRC.H CATASTROPHY */ My humble apologies to anyone who tried to do a ‘Update “rsrc.h”’ when the rsrc.h file was open. It wasn't pretty. It now works. You should also note that it is possible to parse through a project resource file even if it is open from another application, like ResEdit. I'm opening it read only, and closing it immediately after I'm done with it, so there shouldn't be a problem. As to whether or not the parse will reflect changes that are currently pending via ResEdit will depend upon whether the file has been saved from within ResEdit. As a bonus, 4Plus will now append comments to each #define indicating the attributes that have been set for that resource. /*************************** VERSION 1.4 CHANGES ^1****************************/ /* THE COMMENTS MENU */ A new modifier key combination to remember! This should make going through this documentation a little easier, as well as find some limited use in code development. You can read all about it in the docs. /* KEY PROMPTS AND MACROS */ The docs go on and on about how the ‘Repeat’ command is the only command that can't be recorded in a macro. Real programmers have no doubt discovered that this isn't true. Any command that resulted in the Key Prompt dialog (a 4Plus exclusive) being displayed would be recorded, but the subsequent keyDown event wouldn't be. Which, for example, made the Mark Keys facility somewhat useless when used from within a macro. This has been fixed. A side effect to this fix is that any time 4Plus is waiting for a keyDown event in this context, it won't accept anything else. /* SCROLLING */ Fixed the ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’ commands so that they should work with any kind of scroll bars, as well as those instances where the commands wouldn't work when the thumb was near the top or bottom of the window. As a consequence of the fix, it was easy to implement a ‘Scroll Up’ and ‘Scroll Down’ command. Dazzle your friends. /* TO REPEAT OR NOT TO REPEAT - MACROS */ The whole macro/repeat business has been reevaluated, and many significant changes have come about as a result. Most notable amongst these changes is that a command or another macro may now be repeated within a macro. Many more commands now terminate a macro or the repeat command if they are unable to perform their respective functions. And certain 4Plus functions have been hardcoded so as to be "unrepeatable". The relevant sections in the docs have been rewritten so as to reflect these changes, so go check it out. /* UPDATE RSRC.H SPECIFICATION */ As previously mentioned, the 'STR ' #128 resource within 4Plus contains the prefix for the filename to be used with the ‘Update “rsrc.h”’ command. 4Plus now allows for a wildcard to be specified, the wildcard will be replaced with the name of the currently open project. The wildcard character is the colon (':'), a little unusual perhaps but it's the only character I know of that can't be used in a Macintosh filename, so there shouldn't be any conflicts. As before, 4Plus will append the".h" to the name on it's own, so it needn't/shouldn't be specified in the resource. So... you're working on a project, let's call it foo.π... and the 'STR ' #128 in 4Plus is "\p:"... so the resource header file name will be “foo.π.h” /* ABOUT 4PLUS... */ Choosing the ‘About 4Plus…’ item from the options menu is supposed to create this really neat “warping through the stars” effect somewhat analogous to the effect achieved by the ‘About THINK C’ item. Clicking on the mouse then gives you all the goodies about who, what and how much. I coded this to be compatible with all of the different monitor depths, including 24/32 bit. I've tested this on all of the different monitor depths, excluding 24/32 bit. Now, some of you are saying that it doesn't work, so I guess you've got 24/32 bit monitors. I've reviewed the logic,and I've made a tiny change with regards to determining what the screen depth is, so maybe it'll work now. As you might have guessed, I am writing directly to the screen. Spank me. MoveTo(x, y), Line(0, 0); wasn't cutting it, performance wise. About... screens shouldn't be the focus of any development effort, so if this doesn't work, I guess I'll have to go with the proven approach of presenting a modal dialog box instead. /* LAUNCHING MORE DOCUMENTS FROM THE FINDER */ Provided a mechanism whereby both text files and project files may now be opened from the Finder under MF while THINK C is open. I would have thought that simply adding a couple of 'mst#' resources to THINK C would have accomplished this (as outlined in the “MultiFinder Revisited” tech note), but it seems as if you can only open project files at the expense of not being able to open text files with this approach. 4Plus now will add 'mstr' 102 & 103 resources to THINK C if they are not already present (4Plus uses the 'mstr's contained in it's own file). When a project is opened, 4Plus will set THINK C's 'mstr''s to point to the File menu's Open… item. When a project is closed, 4Plus will set the 'mstr''s to point to the Project menu's Open Project… item. Note that the only time the 'mstr''s are actually written to THINK C's resource file is at application launch, so that in the event you should decide to use THINK C without 4Plus, things should behave normally. /* MORE ABOUT SUPERCLOCK */ I've been advised that SuperClock uses the jGNEFilter gizmo to get those mouseDowns in the menu bar, and that version 3.9 DOES solve the aforementioned incompatibility problem. /* SYSTEM 7.0 ^5 */ I've been advised from a truly reliable source that 4Plus is compatible with System 7. So smoke 'em if you got 'em. /* SAM AND 4PLUS */ Somebody has observed that 4Plus has a problem with SAM. Specifically, when SAM completes a scan on an inserted disk and closes the associated dialog, 4Plus hangs. So now one Symantec program has been rendered incompatible with another Symantec program... not bad for a few month's work! I don't have access to SAM, and without either buying SAM or getting a more robust bug report I won't be able to do anything about the problem, if in fact it's specific to 4Plus :) /* QUICKEYS AND 4PLUS */ Using QuicKeys to do a “Home” or “End” evidently causes a problem with the “Power Thumb”. One solution is to disable the “Power Thumb” in the options menu while noting that it is still available by depressing the option key when thumbing. /* STILL MORE ABOUT RSRC.H */ Located beneath the “Update ‘rsrc.h’” item in the options menu is a new item, “Update ‘proj.π.rsrc’”. What I'm trying to do here is a little insane... you can read all about it in the revised documentation. /* ANATOMY OF A REALLY NASTY BUG ^2*/ Evidently there was a problem with 4Plus and older, 68000 based Macs which ranks as one of the stupidest things I've ever done. It goes something like this. The only patch 4Plus makes at startup is to InitGraf, which it does so as to be able to detect application launches (yes, I know about GetResource('CODE', 0), but it comes too early). 4Plus then does a GetFCBInfo call using CurApRefNum to see which application is getting launched, and if GetFCBInfo returns the string "\pTHINK C", it's off to Patch-O-Rama. The bummer with this is that the ShowINIT code by Paul Mercer calls InitGraf. And when InitGraf is called by ShowINIT, there is no current application so CurApRefNum is zero. So 4Plus then feeds GetFCBInfo a non-existent file reference number and GetFCBInfo does it's walk through the file control block array two bytes off the mark, all of which is enough to make the 68000 puke while the bigger CPU's merrily go on with the delusion that they're actually reading something meaningful. So 4Plus now looks at CurApRefNum, and if it's zero, it concludes that whoever it was that called InitGraf can't be THINK C. Apologies to all who were burned by this. /* VERSION TERRITORY */ 4Plus now lets you edit your 'vers' resources. Additionally, the option exists wherein the version number will get bumped up by one each and every time you build your application/code resource/etc. Read all about it in the docs. /* OPEN HEADER */ This feature was added sometime ago, but was omitted from the Version Notes. I elaborate in the docs. /* ENTER SELECTION TO REPLACE */ Yet another command... this one does the same thing as THINK C's "Enter Selection" command except here we enter the selection as the replacement text. /* THE OPTIONS MENU AGAIN */ I guess I didn't know what I was doing when I initially stuck the options menu in the menu bar, as is evident from the many reports I have received from people who say it doesn't play well with the other INITs, most notably MacroMaker. /* MACHEADERS MENU MISREPRESENTATION */ The MacHeaders menu did not work with explicitly included precompiled headers, even though I said it did. In some instances, this also affected the ancestry menus as well. This has been fixed. /* ANCESTRY MENUS BUMMER */ If you precompile any of your header files containing class declarations and if those header files utilized the #define _H_filename feature, 4Plus gave you incomplete results when attempting to use the ancestry menus. THINK C maintains information about every source file contained within a project (obviously), and part of that information relates to which header files are accessed by a source file. When THINK C sees an #include "filename.h" statement, it checks to see if the symbol _H_filename is defined, and if it is, THINK C doesn't bother including the file, and more importantly, doesn't associate the header file with the source file within the project. So 4Plus never knew it was there. This has now been addressed by a new preference setting, "Enable Tree Search". The name should say it all, but you can check out the docs. Note that there is a potential in this feature for those who don't precompile their header files that contain class declarations. /* METHODS MENU FIX */ Fixed a problem with the methods menu wherein a comment inserted between the argument list and the method's open bracket prevented 4Plus from seeing the method. /* THE MARK THINGS DON'T ALWAYS WORK */ That's because I was updating the marks on null events only, the thinking being that none of you were so fast at the keyboard so as to prevent a nullEvent from creeping into the event queue every now and then. Unfortunately, macro playback WAS fast at the keyboard... so fast that it did indeed prevent those precious nullEvents from spawning with the marks. So the deal now is that, when applicable, the appropriate marks get updated when appropriate... which means that the mark things are now working. Some other mark-related maintenance was done as well... if you've ever found anomalies in mark behaviour, please check the problem out again - chances are I've fixed it. /* COMMENTS */ By far, the most requests for new features have been for some kind of facility to deal with commented code. One user wants a means to convert MPW/C++ style // comments into C style /* comments */. You can do this with grep... I've entered the expression into the grep menus and assigned a search utilizing that expression and created a macro that then performs the conversion with this version of 4Plus. Another user wants to be able to select text and then have 4Plus comment it. Well, the mark stack wasn't always working correctly with macros, but it is now (I think), so two macros has been created that will comment selected text - one for commenting out a portion of a single line of text and another for commenting out a block (multiple lines) of text. For the former, simply select the text to be commented and invoke the first macro... for the latter, select part of the first line and part of the last line to be block commented and invoke the second macro. To uncomment already commented text, I've provided a new 4Plus command, it's called “Select Comment” and it will select the commented portion of a document that contains the current selection range, if such a comment exists. As a result, I am including another macro that will uncomment already commented text... just stick the selection range somewhere within the comment and invoke the macro.