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This Technical Note describes the process by which an application can remap the
Help Manager 'hmnu' resource while a movable modal dialog box is on the screen.
The Help Manager handles the case for modal dialog boxes but punts in the case
of movable modal dialog boxes. The following information will help you get the
correct interface performance.
[Aug 01 1991]
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What's involved
The System 7 support for movable modal dialog boxes is limited to providing the
new 'WDEF' variant. The rest of the implementation of movable modal dialog
boxes is left to the application. Applications must provide handling for all
events intended for a movable modal dialog box. This could be accomplished by
calling the IsDialogEvent and DialogSelect Toolbox routines, or using other
Toolbox routines such as FindWindow, BeginUpdate, DrawDialog, EndUpdate,
TrackControl, TEClick.
How you process the events is up to you, but when it comes to appropriate
balloon help the application must call the EnableItem, DisableItem and
HMSetMenuResID Toolbox routines. The HMSetMenuResID is used before and after
enabling or disabling the menus. HMSetMenuResID routine maps an alternative
'hmnu' resource to your menus.
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The Systems 'hmnu' string resource
Listed here are two alternative 'hmnu' resources. The first one uses the same
strings that the Help Manager shows when ModalDialog is called. The constant
kHMHelpID is defined in the interface files BalloonsTypes.r, Ballons.h, and
Balloons.p. In general it refers to the ID of various Help Mgr resources. In
this case it selects a STR# resource in the System and the constants 31 and 32
refer to the string index within that resource. These strings are the ones the
Help Manager uses when a Modal Dialog Box is on the screen.
resource 'hmnu' (256,"System Movable Modal Dialog hmnu") {
HelpMgrVersion,
hmDefaultOptions,
0,
0,
HMStringResItem { /* Missing items */
0, 0,
kHMHelpID, 31,
0, 0,
0, 0,
},
{
HMStringResItem { /* Menu Title */
0, 0,
kHMHelpID, 32,
0, 0,
},
}
};
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An alternate 'hmnu' from your application
If you don't want to display the same strings that the Help Manager displays
for Modal Dialog Boxes, you can map in your own alternate 'hmnu' resource such
as the following.
resource 'hmnu' (256,"Application Movable Modal Dialog hmnu") {
HelpMgrVersion,
hmDefaultOptions,
0,
0,
HMStringItem { /* Missing items */
"",
"This item is not available because it cannot be used with"
"the About box on your screen.",
"",
"",
},
{
HMStringItem { /* Menu Title */
"",
"This menu is not available because it cannot be used with"
"the About box on your screen.",
"",
"",
},
}
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Using the alternate 'hmnu' resource
After displaying the movable modal dialog box on the screen, the application
should disable inappropriate menus and items and map in the alternate 'hmnu'
resources.
menu = GetMHandle(mApple);
DisableItem(menu, 0);
HMSetMenuResID(mApple, 256);
menu = GetMHandle(mFile);
DisableItem(menu, 0);
HMSetMenuResID(mFile, 256);
menu = GetMHandle(mEdit);
DisableItem(menu, 0);
HMSetMenuResID(mEdit, 256);
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Removing the alternate 'hmnu' resource
After removing the movable modal dialog box from the screen, the application
must enable appropriate menus and items and unmap the alternate 'hmnu'
resources.
menu = GetMHandle(mApple);
EnableItem(menu, 0);
HMSetMenuResID(mApple, -1);
menu = GetMHandle(mFile);
EnableItem(menu, 0);
HMSetMenuResID(mFile, -1);
menu = GetMHandle(mEdit);
EnableItem(menu, 0);
HMSetMenuResID(mEdit, -1);
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Note:
The previous fragments of code do not perform error checking.
Well-behaved applications perform error checking whenever required. In these
example the menu handle should be checked for a nil value before calling
DisableItem and EnableItem.
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Back to top References
Inside Macintosh, Volume VI, Help Manager
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Downloadables
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Acrobat version of this Note (48K).
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Download
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