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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, January 15, 1991 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Topic: Marketing Your Software and Open Topic
Forum Leader: Gary Jacobson (AFA Gary J)
AFA Gary J Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum. Tonight's topic is
Marketing Your
AFA Gary J Software. We'll not use protocol (yet) with this small group
(unless we get
AFA Gary J larger and unrowdy :), so if anyone has a question to start out
this evening,
AFA Gary J then go for it :)
AFA Gary J Anyone here have software they NEED to market? :)
AFA Gary J Many people are going shareware these days.
AFA Gary J Ok, if nobody has questions on our topic tonight, we can open it
up to general
AFA Gary J questions :)
ShanoJ I have some kinda general questions about marketing software....
Foreigner1 what's the topic?
AFA Gary J The topic tonight is Marketing your software.
AFA Gary J Ok Jonah, GA
ShanoJ Well, I guess my questions are really about selling to publishing
companies...
ShanoJ Is there a 'going rate' for selling programs to publishing
companies?
Mac Hater 5-10% royalties
ShanoJ Even a rough ball-park figure would be nice... I have just about
no idea now...
Nuzz Johah, I think that would depend on how broad a base the program
is aimed at
Nuzz and how ambitiuos the program is, But 10% sounds about right to
me
AFA Gary J GA, Scott
AFL Scott I really think royalties should be on a case basis and calculated
on the value the application
ShanoJ (which means for me about 0%? :)
AFL Scott brings to the host computer.
AFL Scott GA
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J Thanks, any other comments?
Mac Hater the bigger the manufacturer, the smaller cut you'll get.
AFA Gary J Allright, any other questions? (Marketing, toolbox, BASIC, how
to turn on the
AFA Gary J computer, etc )
Mac Hater I can't figure out how to turn it off. :(
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J I have that problem too, Mac Hater :)
WinkieJim too many variables..:)
AFA Gary J GA, Foreigner
Foreigner1 Did the general way to set up icon controls in windows change over
this summer?
Foreigner1 I keep getting interesting errors when I use the Toolbox mans
1&2.
ShanoJ Do you mean in dialog boxes?
Foreigner1 No, I mean everwhere.
AFA Gary J GA, Matt
Matt DTS Icon button controls are not and never have been discussed in
Toolbox Reference #1 or #2.
Matt DTS Those controls are new to 5.0 and are only in Toolbox Reference
#3.
Matt DTS Icons, as in QDAux _DrawIcon, have been around virtually forever
and have not changed. GA.
Foreigner1 they are in the dialog mananger. Or maybe I have the terminology
wrong.
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Dave Lyons What toolbox calls are you making and what error codes are you
getting back?
Foreigner1 Hang on a sec...
Dave Lyons (None of this stuff changed for 5.0.3 or 5.0.4.)
ShanoJ I think they're not supported in dialog boxes (which is what you'd
be using the
ShanoJ dialog manager for....)
Foreigner1 I'm trying to set them up using an itemtemplate.
Foreigner1 The routine refuses to recognize my icon handles.
Dave Lyons For what toolbox call? GetNewModalDialog??
Foreigner1 All the icon stuff that used to be in the dialog.h file has now
been changed...
Foreigner1 No, just for setting the itemtemplates up: compiler error.
Dave Lyons Hmm--could be that the interface file changed. But I know that
the Dialog Manager itself did not
Dave Lyons change. What C compiler are you using, and what error do you get
from the compiler?
Foreigner1 Orca/c 1.1.
Foreigner1 The iconitem type is not #def'd anymore.
Dave Lyons Okay, that's because (see TB Ref volume 3)
Dave Lyons iconItems in Dialog Manger dialogs are not officially supported
(it says they never worked
Dave Lyons at all--in fact, I think they never worked -reliably-).
Dave Lyons You might consider putting in a userItem instead, and having
your
Dave Lyons user item routine just call DrawIcon. This way you can use
DrawIcon-format icons instead of iconItem
Dave Lyons format icons, which means you can use up-to-date icon editors or
whatever to draw them.
Foreigner1 Alright, let's go about this the other way, how do I put an icon
in a window
Foreigner1 that responds to a click? (I need it to set a flag)
Dave Lyons (If you have a really complex dialog, abandon the Dialog Mgr
completely!)
Foreigner1 Not complex. I just want a few icons and some stattext things.
Dave Lyons The most "obvious" way to put an icon in a window and
Dave Lyons make it respond to a click is: (1) Draw the icon in the wContDraw
routine for your window; (2) when
Dave Lyons your program gets a wInContent event back from TaskMaster, check
the coordinates to see where they
Dave Lyons clicked in your window (use SetPort to set the port to your
window, then GlobalToLocal on the
Dave Lyons point to get it into the window's coordinates).
Foreigner1 Okay, I was just hoping for a more graceful way. Thanx again
Dave. GA
Dave Lyons (If your window can scroll, use StartDrawing instead of SetPort,
and use SetOrigin(0,0) when
Dave Lyons you're through.)
Dave Lyons Wait, there *is* a more graceful way, in 5.0
Dave Lyons and later! Use NewControl2 to create an Icon Button control.
Call TaskMaster with the
Dave Lyons wContentControl bit set in the task mask, and it will find and
track controls for you--it will
Dave Lyons tell you the control ID of the extended control they clicked in
(see TB Ref 3, Control Manager and
Dave Lyons Window Manager chapters).
Foreigner1 Don't have Vol 3 yet- sometime this week! :)
Dave Lyons (Ack! :) ga
AFA Gary J :) Ok, WinkieJim had the next question. GA
WinkieJim Ok, I finaly have a problem on tuesday night! :)
AFA Gary J oh-oh :)
WinkieJim Ok, I have this NDA with it's nice window onscreen.
WinkieJim I then call the Standard File Operations toolkit to put up a
SFGetFile dialog
WinkieJim box
WinkieJim Everything works beautifuly with the dialog, except
WinkieJim if the first thing I do is hit the down arrow key to scroll
through the list
WinkieJim of filenames.
WinkieJim If I do then the List is drawn in my NDAs window instead of the
dialog box.
WinkieJim another keypress and it is drawn in the dialog box as normal.
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Dave Lyons Kawanga! *Sounds* like a Standard File bug, doesn't it? But I've
never seen that happen
Dave Lyons before. Do you have to hit the key *before* the dialog gets drawn
completely, or what?
Dave Lyons Is it the list's frame, the scroll bar, or some actual items
inside the list that are getting
Dave Lyons drawn in your window?
WinkieJim no, the dialog is drawn on the screen adn I press the down arrow
key and it
WinkieJim draws the list in the NDA's window. Any other action does
everythign normaly
Dave Lyons The whole list gets drawn in your window, including the frame,
scroll bar, and some filenames?
WinkieJim The frame the scroll bar and the first two items in the list
(first normal
WinkieJim second highlighted) get drawn in the nda window
Dave Lyons Nasty. But why just *your* NDA? Has anybody else seen this
behavior?
WinkieJim I check out a couple other NDAs that use standard file boxes and
it doesn't
WinkieJim seem to do it in them
Mac Hater do you have any list controls in your nda?
WinkieJim Nope. It has a menu bar though.
Dave Lyons Don't see why either of those would cause problems; how 'bout you
email me a copy of the DA--I'd
WinkieJim I do have other controls in the window though...
Dave Lyons really like to see this happen so I can make sure it's not *my*
bug. :-) *And* of course I want
Dave Lyons to solve your problem, too.... :) ga
WinkieJim :)
AFA Gary J of course :)
AFA Gary J Anything else, Winkie?
WinkieJim Nope, that's my big problem...
AFA Gary J Ok :) The next question goes to Windrider. GA
Windrider5 How does TaskMasterDA differ from TaskMaster?
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Dave Lyons They're almost identical, and they share most of their code.
TaskMasterDA does not call
Dave Lyons GetNextEvent, because you're already passing it a Task Record with
the Event Record portion filled
Dave Lyons in (i.e., you're giving it an event that SystemEvent gave to your
NDA). And TaskMasterDA
Dave Lyons skips the SystemTask call that calls Run Queue tasks and gives Run
events to NDAs. ga
AFA Gary J Does that answer it for you, Windrider?
Windrider5 Can TaskMaster work in an NDA?
WinkieJim That's what it's for.
AFA Gary J Yes, GA Dave
Dave Lyons (Sorry, was reading mail) Yes, you can use TaskMaster from an NDA
in *modal* situations
Dave Lyons only. To be clear: when you get an eventAction, you copy the
event record to an extended task
Dave Lyons record and call TaskMasterDA. Completely separate from that, if
your NDA puts up a window and wants
Dave Lyons to do modal stuff in there (a modal window on top of your NDA
window) you should use regular
Dave Lyons TaskMaster from there (just like, say, ChooseFont does).
WinkieJim opps, didn't see he left off the DA part.
WinkieJim <---loves Taskmaster DA
Dave Lyons Caution: You have to be sure to
Dave Lyons leave *off* certain Task Mask bits, like tmUpdate, to prevent
TaskMaster from calling the wContDefProc
Dave Lyons routines for Application windows. If you allowed it to do that,
the system could crash, because
Dave Lyons the App might expect the right ResourceApp to be current (which it
certainly will not be if your
Dave Lyons NDA uses resources). This restriction may be lifted in future
system software. ga
AFA Gary J Thanks, Dave.
Windrider5 thanks Dave, that was exactly the info I needed to know.
AFA Gary J And, that brings us to Jonah's question. GA, Jonah
ShanoJ Okay, can I ask two completely unrelated questions? No? Oh, guess
I wasted my
ShanoJ question then.... :)
AFA Gary J Ok, Next?
ShanoJ Seriously though...
AFA Gary J :)
ShanoJ This one is for the DTS guys: are custom popup menus 'supported',
'legal', and
ShanoJ all of that good stuff? I know they WORK (pretty much), I just
don't know
ShanoJ whether they're allowed....
Matt DTS Well...
ShanoJ Oh, that reminded me, the pretty much comes from the fact that
they dont seem
ShanoJ to call the getMID routine. They call EVERYTHING else, but they
don't get the
ShanoJ final ACTUAL ID of the item selected....
Matt DTS ...they're legal as far as we know, but they don't support
scrolling (no custom menus do).
ShanoJ This is easily fixable, though.... (Big grin.... :)
Matt DTS (Unless Dave knows something I don't. I've never written one.)
GA.
Dave Lyons Strange--like Matt said, custom menus can't scroll, but I thought
they worked okay otherwise. I
Dave Lyons don't know of any sample code, but at one point there was going to
be one in 5.0.3 Standard File,
Dave Lyons and it seemed to work just fine there.
WinkieJim Pop-up directory pathname?
ShanoJ Well, I managed to put one in a SF dialog too, and the standard
popup worked
ShanoJ fine, but the custom one didn't get the item returned
(PopUpMenuSelect always
ShanoJ returned 0).
Dave Lyons I will have to play with them sometime & see what, if anything, is
wrong.
Dave Lyons (No, it was going to be a pop-up volume menu, but it would up with
the Volumes level instead. A
Dave Lyons pathname pop-up would be cool, though.)
ShanoJ Jim: That's EXACTLY what I did.... :)
ShanoJ If anyone wants it I have almost working wsource that does a SF
dialog like on
ShanoJ the Mac with the popup menu...
ShanoJ It still needs a little bit of tweaking, but it's pretty good...
WinkieJim No thanks I had enough problems adding one button to a SF dialog
:)
AFA Gary J :)
Matt DTS Using Standard File, Jonah?
ShanoJ Well then Jim, watch for my article in 8/16-Central on how to do
this stuff!!:)
ShanoJ Matt: Ya, SFPxxxx
WinkieJim Sure, now that I'm done :)
Matt DTS I realize such things are cool and necessary but I'd just as soon
people left the major parts of the
Matt DTS human interface in Standard File to us. If we majorly wacko make
it better, people using custom
Matt DTS dialogs don't get the benefit of it.
Dave Lyons ShanoJ, did you put little icons next to your items, or what?
(That's why it had to be custom?)
ShanoJ Dave and Matt: if you want some sample code that (I think) proves
that the
ShanoJ custom popups don't work, I'll send it to you...
Dave Lyons (Unclear--in many cases people using custom SFP templates *do* get
the benefit of revved
Dave Lyons standard file versions.)
ShanoJ I know, Matt... I mainly wrote it to see if it'd be done--I don't
think I'll
ShanoJ ever use it in a program...
ShanoJ Dave: Ya, I wrote a menu proc that put a little icon next to each
item...
ShanoJ Scott says I should tell you I also did nested menus, too, while I
was at it...
ShanoJ There, however, you're out of luck as I _DO_ plan to use them in a
program...
A2GS Nested menus?
Matt DTS Hierarchicals. Ack.
ShanoJ Albert: Ya, like on the Mac, with the litte |> to the side...
WinkieJim Shano, that sound like a lot of fub :)
WinkieJim fub=fun
AFA Gary J fub too :)
ShanoJ No, you were right the first time. It was a lot of fub... :)
Foreigner1 :)
Matt DTS (Had the Volumes pop-up gone in 5.0.3, it was not going to appear
in SFPxxxx dialogs. Only in the
Matt DTS standard ones. We had no way of knowing whether developers wanted
the standard behavior or whether
Matt DTS they really wanted a "disk" button, so SFPxxxx calls were left
alone.)
Nuzz I like the disk button
ShanoJ Ugg! I love the volumes button... I even wrote a fake SF call
that's I named
ShanoJ SFVoulmes that JUST does what the volumes button does....
WinkieJim I'm glad you kept the tab key going to the next volume
A2GS I thought DTS decided against doing hierarchicals for the GS
because they
A2GS turned out to be more of a headache then an improvement.
ShanoJ With 8 volumes on line, that disk button is a killer.... :)
WinkieJim Platinum paint could use hierarchicals...:)
Nuzz I meant Volume Button
Matt DTS Some programs (like Platinum Paint) could benefit from
hierarchicals. However...
Matt DTS Apple's experience has been that most uses of hierarchical menus
simply make the menu organization
Matt DTS more efficient for the programmer and a lot harder for the user
(case in point: Microsoft PowerPoint).
ShanoJ I agree that they're a bad interface design....
Matt DTS Lots of people use hierarchical menus just to make their
ill-organized applications fit in the menu
Matt DTS bar instead of reorganizing the application to work better.
That's why we're in no hurry to see them
Matt DTS as part of the IIgs Menu Manager.
WinkieJim I saw a ad there they showed off about 4-5 nested menus :)
ShanoJ I only wrote them because I wanted the GS to be able to do what
the Mac
ShanoJ could.... :)
Dave Lyons (DTS does not write the system software, but they don't like
hierarchical menus very much; neither
Dave Lyons do I, because they're kinda clumsy & easy to abuse badly.)
AFA Gary J They are kind of a pain sometimes.
AFA Gary J Winkie, did you have a question still?
WinkieJim yes
AFA Gary J GA, then :)
WinkieJim How many of you would:
ShanoJ I would!
WinkieJim a) like to read an article on creating custom extended controls
WinkieJim b) Be interested in a custom control that could display a bar
(like the
WinkieJim boot status bar) with only a few calls?
WinkieJim ga?
Foreigner1 Sounds interesting.
ShanoJ I would... Then again, I'm also writing an article like that, so I
guess I
ShanoJ should probably vote against yours.... :)
Nuzz I'd like to see it too
WinkieJim 8/16 most probably...
WinkieJim Author would be me
AFA Gary J Oh, then Ok! :)
ShanoJ ...except I'm not doing thermometer controls, though.
WinkieJim Good :)
Mac Hater how many would like to see... an article on emulating a macintosh
with a IIgsa
Mac Hater and paperclip?
AFA Gary J :) Where, in the funny section? :)
AFA Gary J (cartoons, that is :)
WinkieJim Mac, why I did that a year ago...old stuff...
ShanoJ I got two more questions....
AFA Gary J Ok, GA Jonah
ShanoJ 1) Is there ANY way to know when a GS/OS call is made, short of
patching the
ShanoJ dispatch vectors? This is the only thing stopping my SF menus from
working
ShanoJ PERFECTLY.... :(
ShanoJ and while I'm at it....
ShanoJ 2) Does anyone know how the new SSSi editor compares to MAX/Edit
and the
ShanoJ standard ORCA editor?
ShanoJ Oh, in case it matters I'm only looking for SetPrefix calls in
#1
Nuzz SSSI has a demo of Edit 16 in the library
AFA Gary J GA, Winkie
WinkieJim Shano, I;ve used a little trick to see if Prefixes have
changed...
Dave Lyons ShanoJ, why does your SF menu need to kow when a GS/OS call is
made??
ShanoJ Dave: It has to update the menu in the SF dialog....
WinkieJim What I do is make a small output buffer (4-6 bytes long) and
WinkieJim do a SetPrefix call for the 0-31 preifxes and add up the
lengths...
WinkieJim if the value changes from the last time I checked, the prefixes
have changed...
WinkieJim (not totaly reliable if the prefix length doesn't change
though...)
Dave Lyons And if I changed prefix 0 from :H1:Food to :H1:Beef, you don't
notice that it changed??
ShanoJ Jim: I see what you're saying, but it won't work in this
instance... My code
ShanoJ only gets control when a button is hit (or I interrupt the SF
toolset some
ShanoJ other way)... See the problem?
WinkieJim Right...nothings perfext
WinkieJim (including my spelling)
Dave Lyons Maybe I'm missing something, guys, but why don't you just get the
prefix you want and compare it
Dave Lyons against what it used to be??
Dave Lyons (WJ, I don't agree! A lot of things are pefect in the appropriate
context. :-)
WinkieJim Dave, think of the memory needed to store 32 prefixes that can be
$2000 long :)
Dave Lyons WJ, the memory needed is exactly 32*4 bytes longer than the
*actual* size of the prefixes (prefixi?).
A2GS prefixis
Dave Lyons ShanoJ, where is your menu again? Why can't you check it right
before you pull it down?
WinkieJim Previa? :)
Dave Lyons Eh?
A2GS previece
ShanoJ It's on top of the list in a SF dialog... It won't work to check
right before
ShanoJ it's poped (although I do that, too) because the following might
happen:
ShanoJ Use opens SF dialog, pop up menu is set properly. Then double
clicks a folder.
ShanoJ The folder is opened, and the name shown in the popup should be
changed. I get
ShanoJ an itemHit call when the list is hit, but this is BEFORE the
prefix is changed.
ShanoJ So, I either need to have some way to be called AGAIN, after the
prefix is
ShanoJ changed, or to be called WHEN the prefix is changed....
Dave Lyons Are you doing this for SFPxxx calls, or just SFxxx calls?
ShanoJ SFPxxx calls only (couldn't put it in the SF dialog....)
WinkieJim Shano, can't you put a RunQ task in that checks if the prefix
changed and
WinkieJim update the popup?
ShanoJ There's a thought....
Dave Lyons So why don't you override the standard Path item, and update it
whenever your filter proc gets
Dave Lyons called? Or doesn't it get called at all when they double-click a
folder?
Dave Lyons (wait, I haven't read everything you said)
ShanoJ Well, it does get called when the thing is double clicked, but
that's before
ShanoJ the path has changed... What do you mean by 'override the standard
path item'?
Dave Lyons I guess you're already overriding it--I meant putting in your own
code to replace the
Dave Lyons standard Path Item drawing the pathname above the list.
Dave Lyons (That doesn't solve the problem, since it's not changing the
prefix at the most convenient
Dave Lyons time for you. There may be no clean way to do it at present.)
WinkieJim Shano, Dave did have another idea, put the check for prefix
changing in your
WinkieJim filetype filter proc...
ShanoJ Jim: thought of that. It won't work for SFPPutFile2, because there
IS no filter
ShanoJ proc...
WinkieJim ahhh Put...
ShanoJ I think the RunQ is the best idea so far....
ShanoJ Though that's a bit on the kludgy side....
AFA Gary J I have a question (I probably should have asked earlier)
AFA Gary J Anyone know of any "super macro" macros available for ORCA/M,
like the ones
AFA Gary J used in Merlin 16+?
ShanoJ How hard would it be to convert Merlin's to APW format?
AFA Gary J I dunno, never really looked at them. I have a friend who's
trying to convert to ORCA/M.
WinkieJim Somewhat tricky...about the same as converting Merlin source to
APW
ShanoJ I just got Merlin (thanks, Marty!!), so I don't know enough about
it to know...
AFA Gary J :)
WinkieJim <---merlin Maniac, I love my super macros...only
WinkieJim wish they'd update them for 5.0 already
AFA Gary J Do you use Merlin all the time, Winkie? Have you had any
problems doing
AFA Gary J resources, and that sort of thing with Merlin?
WinkieJim It's all I use.
WinkieJim Not really I do all my resource creation and editing in Genesys
and
WinkieJim Merlin save the final object fine just to the data fork, leaving
the resource
WinkieJim fork ok.
ShanoJ Ya, anyone know about Merlin supporting resources eventually?
WinkieJim Shano, supposilly the next update will have resource stuff in it
WinkieJim Brendon does tend to go off on his own course.
AFA Gary J I have Merlin 16, but never upgraded to 16+.
AFA Gary J (I used to use Merlin all the time, for 8-bit stuff)
ShanoJ Is it just me, or is much of the Merlin interface backwards? It
seems that he
ShanoJ likes to use 'Esc' to confirm and 'Return' to cancel.... :(
ShanoJ "No Jonah, just you're backwards.... " :)
AFA Gary J Well, I thought I saw a 3rd party someplace that had super-macros
for ORCA, but
AFA Gary J I could be wrong.
WinkieJim BTw, for a sample of weather resources can be acieved using Merlin
16+ and
WinkieJim Genesys just check out Super info II
AFA Gary J Yes, I thought you were heavily into resources, that's why I
asked :)
ShanoJ It is nice and fast though.... But with my new Zip, so is APW....
:)
AFA Gary J What's your speed, Jonah?
A2GS Yes....but Merlin is still faster :)
AFA Gary J Merlin is fast, that's for sure.
AFA Gary J Zip Chip GS?
WinkieJim I might have a problem doing Cdevs if I ever get a chance to try
my hand at
WinkieJim them though...I have no way of making Code resources with Merlin
ShanoJ 8 Mhz on the Zip... Anyone know now to upgrade to 12?!
WinkieJim <---zip is at Zip getting updated for my RamFast
A2GS get a 12 Mhz 65816 maybe? :-)
AFA Gary J I'd settle for 10 Mhz.
A2GS I'd settle for 20