How to deactivate an application AND activate the previous one?

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3 total messages Started by Yeong-Ho Yu Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:18

#351

Author: Yeong-Ho Yu
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:18

33 lines
1782 bytes

When you quit an application, the application which was active
right before the quitting one gets activated.  I want to mimic
this behavior except that I want to deactivate, not quit, an application.
What I am trying to do is to develop a very small keymap change utility 
which has only a button and changes the keymap when a user pushes the button.
So, if a user is using WriteNow and wants to change the keymap to a foreign
language, the user can click on the button.  However, currently, if 
the user wants to continue on WriteNow, s/he has to click on WriteNow again
to activate it.  I want the utility to deactivate itself as soon as it
changes the keymap and automagically activate whatever application which
was active previously (WriteNow, in the example above), so that the user
does not have to click on it.

I tried 
[NXApp deactivateSelf]

but it only deactived itself; so no active application.

I tried to capture the postscript context of the previous application
by putting

int caller = [NXApp activeApp]

either in the action routine of the utility button or
appDidBecomeActive method of the utility application, but
the value seemed to have changed to that of the utility already.
(I wish they had a method called appWillBecomeActive.)

Please reply to yu@cs.utexas.edu
Any help would be appreciated very much.

Yeong Yu
-----------

Re: How to deactivate an application AND activate the previous one?

#423

Author: Dave Griffiths
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1992 22:26

20 lines
1255 bytes

In article <l7fr1cINNse8@ai.cs.utexas.edu> yu@cs.utexas.edu (Yeong-Ho Yu) writes:
>I tried to capture the postscript context of the previous application
>by putting
>
>int caller = [NXApp activeApp]
>
>either in the action routine of the utility button or
>appDidBecomeActive method of the utility application, but
>the value seemed to have changed to that of the utility already.
>(I wish they had a method called appWillBecomeActive.)
>

I agree. I also would like the context of the previous application for a
similar reason. In my app I would like to have some buttons which you press
when you are in some other app and which do something (eg post events) to
the current app. The whole concept of a Service needs to be much broader.

Anyone from NeXT care to comment? (I guess I already know the answer :-)

Dave Griffiths

Re: How to deactivate an application AND activate the previous one?

#431

Author: Andrew Loewenstern
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1992 23:35

38 lines
2181 bytes

In article <1992Aug1.222645.591@prim> prim!dave@germany.eu.net (Dave Griffiths) writes:
>In article <l7fr1cINNse8@ai.cs.utexas.edu> yu@cs.utexas.edu (Yeong-Ho Yu) writes:
>>I tried to capture the postscript context of the previous application
>>by putting
>>
>>int caller = [NXApp activeApp]
>>
>>either in the action routine of the utility button or
>>appDidBecomeActive method of the utility application, but
>>the value seemed to have changed to that of the utility already.
>>(I wish they had a method called appWillBecomeActive.)
>>
>
>I agree. I also would like the context of the previous application for a
>similar reason. In my app I would like to have some buttons which you press
>when you are in some other app and which do something (eg post events) to
>the current app. The whole concept of a Service needs to be much broader.
>
>Anyone from NeXT care to comment? (I guess I already know the answer :-)

I was flamed by people at NeXT for tinkering with the activeApp in
Stylist.  Apparently there are some directives for the services file
documented _somewhere_ (I think it's in the 2.1 release notes...) for
controlling the activation of applications during a services run.

Also, NeXT doesn't seem to like it when developers use services for
more than the most simple of tasks... it's a shame since services are
so *powerful*!


andrew
<there's just so much good stuff in NeXTSTEP that it becomes hard to
'discover' the more obscure features (and when you do find it, it
could be broken... [see 2.1 NXDynamicServices()])>
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com
Andrew Loewenstern      | "Remember what the doormouse said...
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Feed your head."  - Jefferson Airplane

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