By Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch (jon at redshed dot net)
on Saturday, June 26, 1999 3:29:27 AM at MacHack ’99’s Hack Contest.
<http://redshed.net/macHack/99/>
What is it?
Carbonized Menus is an application. It’s completely useless.
What does it do?
At WWDC ’99, Steve Jobs demo’d the new “carbonized” Finder.
First off, we all know carbonized means ‘burnt’.
Second off, it wasn’t new. It was the NEXTSTEP/OpenStep file browser of 1987.
Well, Carbonized Menus finishs Steve’s job(s). It hides the menu bar and in it’s place it creates a universal floating window which holds the menus. Just like OpenStep.
Just hit Command-Q to bring back your Mac world.
Chances are you want to visit <http://redshed.net/macHack/99/> and see if I’ve revved Carbonized Menus. Chances are I won’t, though.
What traps lie in wait for the unwary?
Carbonized Menus was written in five hours, late at night (early in the morning?). Most of that time was spent restarting. That's enough cause for concern.
The code is not robust. I include some relavent source files, but not all of them since it’s standard Toolbox stuff. Your Toolbox code uses atomic stacks, right?
This is MacHack. I want details!
Carbonized Menus is all around skanky. It reads low memory. It uses a data structures last documented in 1983 in Inside Macintosh, Volume I. It installs a jGNEFilter and leaks a small amount of memory into a system heap each time it is launched (actually, it has to do this — trust me). Oh, and it uses C++ and STL to make the code extra crispy.
For some reason the Finder tries awfully hard to show the menubar whenever it’s switched in, so this app isn’t as impressive as it good be.
What does it need?
System 7 or later. 68K Mac with CFM-68K or PowerPC.
Credits.
I thunked a chunk of code from Matt Slot’s appeWindows. Mostly the code for TSM floating windows.
Version History.
1.0 -> Sat, June 26, 1999 at 3:29:27 AM at MacHack 14’s hack contest.