🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <64@sppy00.UUCP> jmv@sppy00.UUCP (Jim Vickroy) writes:
>I hope I'm not the only one who has felt the ultimate frustration in moving
>MS-DOS to the Mac. So I'm going to try tapping this wealth of information:
>
>Do anyone out there have a blow-by-blow procedure to:
>1. Change the desktop icons from the defaults to custom icons?

The method for doing this is described in Inside Macintosh II in the
Finder section.  Unfortunately this section is not particularly clearly
written, and what should be one of the easier hurdles in creating a
Mac application becomes a multiple-hour exercise in confusion for a
beginning Mac programmer.  If someone doesn't post a step-by-step
description of how to do this in the next couple of days, I will.

>2. Change the font of text in a window?
>
Easy.  Use TextFont(fontnumber).  See the QuickDraw chapter in IM I.

>If these are really stupid questions please bare with me...

(Taking off my clothes ... :-))

Seriously, folks.  These are simple questions but unfortunately not stupid
questions in the Mac programming world.  I find it immensely frustrating
sometimes trying to discern the *simplest* things about the Toolbox and
OS calls.  There isn't even a good description of what a complex, real-world
event loop should look like in Apple's documentation.

For example:  IM I has a TextEdit chapter.  But where does it say that
lines in the TextEdit record are terminated in carriage returns?  (What
should I assume?  Could be LFs, NULLs, whatever!)  Where does it say whether
the LineStarts are 0- or 1-based?  (They're 0-based).  Basic stuff,
NOT documented in the primary reference.

I've said before that I think the Tech Notes are an abomination.  IM should
have been a looseleaf set from the start.  Tech Notes should exist only
briefly between updates to IM.  There should be no IM 4 and no IM 5 and
thus no need for the silly cross-reference volumn.

Furthermore, there should be GOOD examples of complex Pascal and C event
loops available from Apple (in a book!)--something like a Macintosh
Application Programmer's Guide.  Not piecemeal (Programming for Multifinder--
yuck!), but a good, solid, systematic introduction to the event loop
programming style, + common idiomatic techniques, readily available.  You
can't expect every future Mac applications programmer to be able to attend
a college class, nor expect him/her to want to spend his time trying to
find a good non-Apple reference (difficult since most of them are either
inaccurate or out-of-date).

After 10 years of programming on everything from TRS-80 Model 1s to 11/780s
running VMS and 4.3BSD, I've found the Mac the most difficult and irritating
environment of all to program in.  I've also found the end results the most
satisfying, which is why I put up with all the bull**** in the first place.

But still ... what do we user/programmers have to do to get decent reference
materials from Apple?  Why do we join APDA, collect inaccurate/
inadequate textbooks, buy $200 of separately-bound IM and related reference
works, collect Tech Notes, post questions on USENET, then STILL run into
undocumented "features", bugs, inaccurate documentation (the new Sound
Manager!), and inconsistencies?



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v   v sssss|| joseph hall                      || 201-1D Hampton Lee Court
 v v s   s || jnh@ece-csc.ncsu.edu (Internet)  || Cary, NC  27511
  v   sss  || the opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of my
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