The Datafile PD-CD 2/DATAFILE_PDCD2.iso/utilities2/_dirmenu/!DirMenu/History

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 6KB | 182 lines

   DirMenu history:
   ----------------


0.00    July 1992
    Stored the whole HD directory tree as a file
    and loaded it each time it was run. To update
    the tree, had to delete the file and run again.
    A bit crap, but I used it every day for
    months, and it saved a lot of time!

1.00    May 1993
    Having seen !QuickDir by Clive Jones, I decided
    to provide menu-making on the fly as well, so
    the menu tree was always up-to-date. Also
    converted to DeskLib, which is superb.
    Added the configuable root menu featue.

1.10    May 5 1993
    Now displays icons in the menus. Discovered
    that the Wimp sends a message with action code
    0x400c9 when a menu is removed without a
    selection being made (e.g. a click off the
    menu). This is used to release all claims on
    further messages, which are detected when the
    menu is open in order to create new sub-menus
    when MENU_WARNING messages are sent by the WIMP.

1.20    May 12 1993 ** First release **
    Added the Info/Quit menu.
    The Info box is my first ever dialogue box,
    and I don't know how to make it moveable like
    all other dialogue boxes I've seen.

1.21    May 24 1993
    Added the options to open the root menu on the
    left hand side of the screen, as suggested by
    Kai Schlichting.
    Fixed a minor bug which resulted in a garbled
    title bar of the submenu of a '@' root item.
    I've now read the comp.sys.acorn Application
    Writer's Guide, so there is now no !Boot file,
    and I've found out how to make the Info window
    movable (process event_OPEN events).

1.30    ** Second release **
    Added Help to normal menu.
    Added 'Edit Configs' and 'Update' to normal menu.
    These do a poor-man's implementation of a proper
    dialogue-box configuration setter/saver. If I
    had more time... Actually, you shouldn't want to
    change the configs very often, so this method
    isn't too bad.
    Changed the template file so that the program
    fills in the version/date when it is run.

1.31    Looks for File_0fb instead of File_fb, when
    searching for a file-type sprite when the file-
    -type is < &100.

1.32    Compiled without function names in code, to
    make it slightly smaller.

1.40    20 June 1993
    Can have multiple icons on the icon-bar, with
    independent root menus.

1.41    Can have text under the icons.

1.42    28 June 1993
    If a directory has bit 6 of its Access atributes
    set, !DirMenu now displays it as an application
    (i.e. looks for a wimp sprite with same name).
    This is for compatability with FilerPatch, by
    Jens Ovesen.

1.43    4 July 1993
    The WIMP doesn't seem to invert text+sprite
    icons in the same way as normal icons in menus,
    so I've padded all items with spaces, making
    highlighted icons in the menu easier to see.

2.00    11 July 1993
    Now creates a menu for Filer windows, like
    !QuickDir.
    This is done by ataching a filter to the Filer
    which sends !DirMenu an event_CLICK when
    Alt-Menu is clicked on a filer window.

2.10    13 July 1993
    Opens a menu when there is a menu-click on the
    filer window title bar. I think this is a lot
    more convenient than going to the keyboard to
    press <Alt>.
    Couldn't use a filter for this because menu-clicks
    on title bars don't seem to be passed on to apps
    by the Wimp. Hence had to make a module which
    claims OS (not Wimp) mouse button events, and
    sends event_CLICK's to DirMenu.


2.11    13 July 1993
    Opens a Filer-window menu for both cases - menu
    on title bar, and alt-menu on workarea.
    !MakeMod makes a single module which acts as a
    filter on the Filer, and also catches mouse
    events.
    Couldn't use mouse-event-detector for the Alt-Menu
    case because the filer would flash open its menu
    just before DirMenu opens its menu.
    !RunImage runs the Basic prog '!MakeMod' after it
    has initialised as a task. !MakeMod then
    assembles the module, called DirMenuMouse,
    assembling in the Filer and DirMenu task_handles.
    When DirMenu is quit, it RMKill's the module.
    Assembling a module every time DirMenu is run
    is a bit clumsy, but I am a new-comer to ARM
    assembler, so a module that actively finds the
    relevant task handles (like in !QuickDir) is a bit
    too advanced for me. My method makes for a smaller
    module anyway, and anyway Acorn have gone to the
    trouble of including an assembler on every machine,
    so I might as well take advantage of it!

    I don't know of any way of preventing the Wimp from
    seeing a mouse click. This caused a few problems
    when making DirMenu respond to non-Wimp events from
    the module. Any suggestions ?

2.20    14 July 1993
    Uses a simple Wimp_Poll loop instead of DeskLib's
    Event_ functions, which are a bit of a luxury in
    such a simple program. This makes !RunImage nearly
    5k smaller. However, it still can't fit into a 32k
    wimpslot.

2.21    18 July 1993 *** third release ***
    Can set DirMenu to expand all system variables in
    file-paths prior to Filer_Run-ing them. This is
    for when iconbar icons are specified to use
    system variables such as <Wimp$ScrapDir> or @. It
    makes file/application windows contain the full
    path name of the files that are clicked on. This
    just uses SWI "OS_FSControl" with r0=37.

2.22    27 July 1993
    Oh dear! The click-on-Filer-titlebar thing seems to
    be a bit wobbly. Changes:

    1. Detects true menu button click i.e. buttons
       000 -> 010, rather than xxx -> y1y.

    2. When opening a Filer-window menu, the main
       program now rechecks that the pointer is over a
       titlebar, as a drag closely followed by a menu
       click on a workarea seem to result in
       Wimp_GetPointerInfo returning the poition of the
       start of the drag i.e. a titlebar. This resulted
       in spurious menu opening sometimes.
       Unfortunately, if you now move the pointer away
       from a titlebar very quickly after clicking menu,
       this modification may mean that DirMenu won't
       open a menu.

    3. In !MakeMod, changed SWI calls to have 'X' bit
       set, and return if the SWI signals an error.
       The normal OS default error handling can give a
       horrid crash when using MemFS's non-multitasking
       'free' window. I don't think this is my fault,
       as the OS error handling should cope with errors,
       and the SWI was Wimp_GetPointerInfo - hardly a
       complicated system-altering one. There was no
       problem with other non-multitasking windows.

    Thanks to Kai Schlichting for noticing these problems.


Can anybody tell me why a 20K program needs more
than a 32k wimpslot to run?