Re: Impelmenting NSWindows95InterfaceStyle

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 19 Jan 2009, at 06:54, hns@computer.org wrote:

> On 19 Jan., 04:57, Germán Arias <ger...@xelalug.org> wrote:
> > Hi, after inspect the source of NSMenu.m and others files. I think  
> > that
> > I can try to implement the option NSWindows95InterfaceStyle. I have  
> > one
> > idea to do that, and I want know what do you think about this.
> >
> > Well, I think that the most easy and elegant way to implement this is
> > make a new window with the horizontal menu and with a standard  
> > toolbar.
> > In others words, don't put the menu in an app's window. Instead this,
> > make a new window (main window) to set the horizontal menu. For  
> > example,
> > if an app is like this
> >
> >  _____
> > |Menu |
> > |     |
> > |     |       ____________________________________
> > |     |       |___________________________________|
> > |_____|       |                                   |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |         App's window              |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |                                   |
> >               |___________________________________|
> >
> > After set NSWindows95InterfaceStyle, the app's look will by like this
> >
> > __________________________
> > |_Main window_____________|
> > |      <-- Menu -- >      |
> > |_________________________|
> > |   <- a standard         |
> > |           toolbar -->   |
> > |_________________________|
> >
> >           ________________________________________
> >          |________________________________________|
> >          |                                        |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |         App's window                   |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |                                        |
> >          |________________________________________|
> >
> > To my this is an elegant solution, because make an horizontal menu  
> > and,
> > at the same time, conserve a distinctive look. In other hand, there  
> > are
> > many apps that implements that look, familiar to many people. Of  
> > course,
> > the programmer will by able to set his own toolbar in the main menu.
> >
> > What do you think about this idea?

I don't use mswindows very much, but it does not appear to be the sort  
of behavior you would expect from a windows application.
I would expect use of NSWindows95InterfaceStyle to produce a menu in  
each windows and remove the main menu:

ie.
 _____
|Menu |
|     |
|     |       ____________________________________
|     |       |___________________________________|
|_____|       |                                   |   
-------------------------
              |                                   |   
|-----------------------|
              |                                   |   
|                       |
              |                                   |   
|                       |
              |         App's window              |  |  Another  
window       |
              |                                   |   
|                       |
              |                                   |   
-------------------------
              |                                   |
              |                                   |
              |___________________________________|

would become






          ________________________________________
         |________________________________________|
         |  <-- Menu -->                          |   
-----------------------
         |                                        |   
|----------------------|
         |                                        |  |  <-- Menu -- 
>        |
         |                                        |   
|                      |
         |         App's window                   |  |  Another  
window      |
         |                                        |   
|                      |
         |                                        |   
------------------------
         |                                        |
         |                                        |
         |________________________________________|


> I had suggested before (maybe my mail got lost) to implement -
> [NSWindow setMenu:] so that it simply adds a horizontal menu between
> the menu title and the window's toolbar.
> This would allow to add window menus to any application and interface
> style. And to have different menus for each window
>
> The only critical aspects I see are
> * you can't define the menu in Interface Builder
> * GORM may need an extension
> * or the application must set up the menu programmatically
> * the standard Application Menu still appears

I guess I should have commented.
Yes, to me it sounds like a good idea to use the field in the window  
to hold the menu, and yes the menu should be displayed immediately  
below the title (in the window decoration view.  I guess it would be  
nice to allow the application to set this window.
However, setting NSWindows95InterfaceStyle on the application's main  
menu really ought to cause the menu window to be ordered out, and the  
main menu to be set in any window where we haven't set another menu  
programatically.

Of course, there are other questions ... presumably any NSPanel (or  
subclass of NSPanel) should probably not get this behavior of having  
the main menu set into it automatically.
I guess we might have some behavior like:
 [window setMenu: nil]  (window gets the main menu in it if  
NSWindows95InterfaceStyle is in use for the main menu, otherwise no  
menu)
 [window setMenu: menu] (window gets some other menu set in it)
 [window setMenu: [NSNull null]])  (window does not display a menu)

So subclasses of NSWindow could control their behavior by having their  
init method set their menu appropriately.