Hi Scott,
Well, the issue of emulation fidelity is an unfortunate monkey on the
back of anyone authoring interactive computer application end-user
training. Even if you largely ignore the issue, it's probably because
the authoring software won't give you the control you need to do it,
or at least do it well/economically/quickly/whatever. Perhaps I have
higher hopes for MetaCard in this regard than any of your other
customers (which I somehow find a little hard to believe).
I still would like to know what, if any, messaging is provided for
while a stack menu is displayed in MetaCard. I can track the mouse
position, for instance. But when you disrecommend a script-based
workaround for this "problem", are the quotes to indicate it's not a
problem for you? If so, it won't be a problem for me, either. I'll
just tell my company that MetaCard is unfortunately unsatisfactory
for our purposes, and we'll just have to continue to use Awfulware!
And when you say my best bet is just to wait, exactly how long should I wait?
Basically, the most desirable situation from my point of view would
be that MetaCard would allow the handling of mouseUp and mouseDown
messages to the menu heading button *somehow* while the stack menu is
deployed. Incidentally, the 99% of Windows users probably aren't
aware that in Word 97, for example, clicking the menu heading button
closes the menu and leaves the button in the up/rollover state on
mouseUp, while My Computer windows do it on mouseDown. At least
Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on interface consistency. I would
be happy to correspond further on the issues of event-handling and
interface feedback states. (For example, guess how many button states
can be found in Office 97 and Office 2000 products! Prizes may be
awarded for the correct answer or for any reasonable justification
for such byzantine interface design features.)
To return to the value of the feature I guess I am requesting,
remember that in the kind of interactive training I am developing,
clicking in the wrong place should result in a response or error
message. At this point, I can't respond to clicking on the menu
heading button at all. If I were designing some kind of soft skills
course, I could care less what MetaCard provided as long as it
basically worked. But with closely monitored interactive stuff, I
can't be so blasé. Besides, incompleteness bugs me.
Speaking of bugs, should I report this as a bug? I really consider it
more of a feature request, but I'd be happy to go the bug report
route, too.
Many regards and happy millenia to all and sundry,
David (a stickler for completeness)
At 12:10 PM -0800 12/29/99, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>From: Scott Raney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: RE: Windows menu emulation?
>Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 16:17:20 -0700 (MST)
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>On Tue, 28 Dec 1999, David Cramer wrote:
>
>> After a fairly hectic Christmas, I am going to be returning to work
>> on the following challenge tomorrow. So far, I have not received any
>> responses that get to the heart of the basic question "What
>> messages/properties can be referenced during the MetaCard stack menu
>> process?"
>
>I think the fundamental problem here is that the behavior you desire,
>clicking on the menu button to close an open menu panel, isn't built
>in. Any script-based workaround for this "problem" would be
>complicated, unstable, and likely to break when the feature gets
>implemented in the future. So your best bet is just to wait. If it's
>any consolation, no one has reported this as a problem before (or
>*still*, according to our bug list), a fact that I would consider
>significant since most look and feel deviations result in multiple bug
>reports. I myself wasn't aware of this "feature" and I'd be willing
>to bet that 99% of Windows and MacOS users aren't either. Clicking
>any place other than on that button does close the menu, which is the
>usual way people close menus they don't want.
> Regards,
> Scott
>
>> Hoping for enlightenment,
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> At 4:20 PM -0600 12/28/99, David Cramer wrote:
>> >Well, I have just spent several days exploring all kinds of
>> >approaches to Windows 95 menu emulation, with the result that I now
>> >think I could get the results I need if only I could figure out one
>> >last piece of this whole puzzle of messaging and targets.
>> >
>> >Here goes...is there a way to *script* the clicking of a stack panel
>> >menu just as if a that stack or a menu item button on the stack had
>> >been clicked by a user? You see, the obstacle for me is still that
>> >clicking on a MetaCard button, which is being used as a menu
>> >heading, while the menu is already open, is a dead click, whereas
>> >standard menu behavior on both Windows and Mac is to close the menu.
>> >So what gives? Is there something simple I'm missing, or is there at
>>
