Inside Macintosh: Interapplication Communication /

Chapter 2 - Edition Manager

This chapter describes how you can use the Edition Manager to allow your users to share and automatically update data from numerous documents and applications.

The Edition Manager is available only in System 7 or later. It can be used by many different applications located on a single disk or throughout a network of Macintosh computers. To test for the existence of the Edition Manager, use the Gestalt function, described in Inside Macintosh: Operating System Utilities.

Read the information in this chapter if you want your application's documents to share and automatically update data, or if you want to share and automatically update data with documents created by other applications that support the Edition Manager.

For example, a user might want to capture sales figures and totals from within a spreadsheet and then include this information in a word-processing document that summarizes sales for a given month. The Edition Manager establishes a connection between these two documents. When a user modifies the spreadsheet, the information in the word-processing document can be automatically updated to contain the latest changes. To accomplish this, both the spreadsheet application and the word-processing application must support the features of the Edition Manager.

To use this chapter, you should be familiar with sending and receiving high-level events, described in the chapter "Event Manager" in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials. Your application must also support Apple events to receive Apple events from the Edition Manager. See the following chapters in this book for detailed information on Apple events.

The Edition Manager provides you with the ability to

• capture data within a document and integrate it into another document
• modify information in a document and automatically update any document that shares its data
• share information between applications on the same computer or across a network of Macintosh computers

Building the capabilities of the Edition Manager into your program is similar to building cut-and-paste features into your program. Text, graphics, spreadsheet cells, database reports--any data that you can select, you can make accessible to other applications that support the Edition Manager. The next section provides an overview of the main elements of the Edition Manager. Following sections discuss how to implement these features in your application.

This chapter also describes an advanced feature that allows applications to share data directly from a file.

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Chapter Contents

Introduction to Publishers, Subscribers, and Editions

About the Edition Manager

Using the Edition Manager

Receiving Apple Events From the Edition Manager

Creating the Section Record and Alias Record

Saving a Document Containing Sections

Opening and Closing a Document Containing Sections

Reading and Writing a Section

Formats in an Edition

Opening an Edition

Format Marks

Reading and Writing Edition Data

Closing an Edition

Creating a Publisher

Creating the Edition Container

Opening an Edition Container to Write Data

Creating a Subscriber

Opening an Edition Container to Read Data

Choosing Which Edition Format to Read

Using Publisher and Subscriber Options

Publishing a New Edition While Saving or Manually

Subscribing to an Edition Automatically or Manually

Canceling Sections Within Documents

Locating a Publisher Through a Subscriber

Renaming a Document Containing Sections

Displaying Publisher and Subscriber Borders

Text Borders

Spreadsheet Borders

Object-Oriented Graphics Borders

Bitmapped Graphics Borders

Duplicating Publishers and Subscribers

Modifying a Subscriber

Relocating an Edition

Customizing Dialog Boxes

Subscribing to Non-Edition Files

Getting the Current Edition Opener

Setting an Edition Opener

Calling an Edition Opener

Opening and Closing Editions

Listing Files That Can Be Subscribed To

Reading From and Writing to Files

Calling a Format I/O Function

Edition Manager Reference

Data Structures

The Edition Container Record

The Section Record

Edition Manager Routines

Initializing the Edition Manager

Creating and Registering a Section

Creating and Deleting an Edition Container

Setting and Getting a Format Mark

Reading in Edition Data

Writing out Edition Data

Closing an Edition After Reading or Writing

Displaying Dialog Boxes

Locating a Publisher and Edition From a Subscriber

Edition Container Formats

Reading and Writing Non-Edition Files

Application-Defined Routines

Summary of the Edition Manager

Pascal Summary

Constants

Data Types

Edition Manager Routines

Initializing the Edition Manager

Creating and Registering a Section

Creating and Deleting an Edition Container

Setting and Getting a Format Mark

Reading in Edition Data

Writing out Edition Data

Closing an Edition After Reading or Writing

Displaying Dialog Boxes

Locating a Publisher and Edition From a Subscriber

Edition Container Formats

Reading and Writing Non-Edition files

Application-Defined Routines

C Summary

Constants

Data Types

Edition Manager Routines

Initializing the Edition Manager

Creating and Registering a Section

Creating and Deleting an Edition Container

Setting and Getting a Format Mark

Reading in Edition Data

Writing out Edition Data

Closing an Edition After Reading or Writing

Displaying Dialog Boxes

Locating a Publisher and Edition From a Subscriber

Edition Container Formats

Reading and Writing Non-Edition files

Application-Defined Routines

Result Codes