Re: Selection (was Re: Better Open Dictionary)
Re: Selection (was Re: Better Open Dictionary)
- Subject: Re: Selection (was Re: Better Open Dictionary)
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 19:13:41 +0000
John Delacour wrote:
>>However this is the first application I've ever seen that can do
selection but not do 'selection as string', [...]
Hmmm. The dictionary lists 'selection' as an object (which I don't
have a problem with)
Good, because it comes from the standard suite and has always been an object.
Yeah well, me being clear as mud; what happens when I try to do
anything at 3am that isn't sleeping.:p
Some apps don't do a selection-object at all, returning a reference
or list of references, or evaluating the selection as a plain AS
value. That's what I was thinking of in semi-comatose state, and
didn't think to go check TE+ at the time. And even if I had, I
probably would've been to cross-eyed to spot the difference in
implementation at the time.
TE+ does a class called selection-object, which subclasses the text
class to get character, word, paragraph elements, etc. That's why you
can do what you want to do there. SE's selection-object class
subclasses its item class; you only get about four properties to play
with, and no text-related elements at all. That's why it doesn't do
what you want it to do. Its dictionary is quite clear on this though.
So aside from the bugs I listed last time, 'selection' seems to be
working exactly as advertised. It's not a Standard Suite class, so
aside from the choice of name there's no reason to expect it to
behave as if it was. All I did was RTFM and I had no trouble getting
text from it at all. (But then I rarely make assumptions about an app
in advance; less disappointment that way...:p)
All the same, if it SE's behaviour confounds common user expectations
(it does) and is less useful than that of TE+ and the like (it is),
then it's a good thing to file an enhancement request on. Standard
behaviours across apps is always a good thing and what the MacOS is
(was?) all about.
Still, I think there's a need to distinguish the real, fatal bugs
from the things that aren't genuine bugs but are inconsistent with
established practice. Hopefully, annoying lumps and bumps can
eventually be ironed out until life is peachy smooth once again, but
right now I'd be more concerned about nailing stuff that's just
downright broken. (Mind, you never actually did call it a bug, though
at the time I implied that from your code and general comments.)
Which I think is what I was getting at at the time... although I
can't really remember now anyway. ;p
Later,
has
--
http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -- The Little Page of AppleScripts
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