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canvas.handle on composite and noncomposite window and other serious lim

To: REALbasic Plugins <realbasic-plugins at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: canvas.handle on composite and noncomposite window and other serious limitations
From: Alfred Van Hoek <vanhoek at mac dot com>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 11:48:11 -0500
Delivered-to: realbasic-plugins at lists dot realsoftware dot com
We require to use the handle property of a canvas on OSX to install a handler on it. On a "non-composited" window RB provides a valid pointer, but alas, canvas.handle returns 0. This means that the lib, requiring us to provide an EventTarget will not work on a window having the composite flag set, while implementing a HIViewObject. And shouldn't RB provide a HIObjectRef (composite = on), given that it will be consistent with a valid handle when composite = off, and a valid handle the Canvas provides for the windows target?

And while we can imagine that release 5 of 2k5 will support a valid canvas handle, it ain't gonna work for us with previous releases, nor with RB 5.5.5, which was the minimum requirement for people to use our plugin. (RB 5.5.5 has additional issues we can workaround). It appears we need to raise the bar to release 5 (provided RB will give us a valid handle, which they should given the X-platform nature of REALbasic).

A window EventTarget will not be an option (interferes with Rb controls having the focus), nor the GetUserFocusEventTarget(). Further, a REALcontrol is not an option too because its handle is always 0. Finally, we also observed that we cannot subclass a REALcontrol (custom), nor canvasses, editfields, scrollbars, ContainerControls, etc, from within a plugin because the IDE will not show the left, top, width, height, lockXX, visible (those that come with a RectControl) when the user will set the dragged instance to the subclass in RB2k5. Even worse and different from RB2k5, RB5.5.5 shows these RectControl properties, but will not show additional properties the subclass defines. It used to work in RB 4.5.

Taken all of the above in combination with an OSX-only lib requiring an EventTargetRef, RB is very limited and I sure hope that something will be done ASAP.

Alfred



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