Inside Macintosh: Apple Guide Complete / Part 3 - Integrating Guide Files

Chapter 9 - Apple Guide API

Application-Defined Routines

This section describes two routines, a coachmark handler and context check handler, that you can provide for your application.

Providing Object Locations for Coachmarks

This section gives information on how to provide a coachmark handler function. Apple Guide can automatically draw coachmarks for menus, items in dialog boxes, and certain parts of a window, without assistance from your application. For those objects that require your application to explicitly specify the coordinates of a rectangle marking the coachmark's location, you can provide a coachmark handler function to do so.

You define coachmarks for these types of objects using the <Define Object Coach> command. You associate an object coach with a particular panel using the <Coach Mark> command.

When Apple Guide opens a panel that includes a <Coach Mark> command naming a defined object coach and that specifies your application as the target application, Apple Guide requests that your application return a rectangle for the named object. (You specify the name of the object to mark and your application's signature as parameters to the <Define Object Coach> command.) Once your application returns a rectangle for the object, Apple Guide draws the coachmark.

Your application handles object-location coachmark requests from Apple Guide by installing a coachmark handler function. Apple Guide calls your coachmark handler whenever it needs to coachmark an object in your application that is specified by a <Define Object Coach> command.

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Subtopics

MyCoachReplyProc