HELP MENUNEWS                                  Aaron Sloman 27 Sept 1993
                                                     Updated 7 Sep 2002
                                      No longer needs Motif or Propsheet


This file lists changes to the menu system, in reverse
chronological order.

The latest version of this file should be accessible at

    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/rcmenu/help/menunews
or
    ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rcmenu/help/menunews

The whole package should be available at
    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/rcmenu.tar.gz
or
    ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rcmenu.tar.gz

However, in order to run, it requires
    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/rclib.tar.gz
or
    ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rclib.tar.gz

For details relating to items listed below, see HELP * VED_MENU

Since AUGUST 19th 1999 The package has been converted to use the RCLIB
facilities, so that motif is no longer required.

After the files are installed in $poplocal/local/rcmenu, a user can make
the package available by doing

    load $poplocal/local/rcmenu/rcmenu.p

Or, if a symbolic link has been set up from
    $poplocal/local/lib/rcmenu.p
to
    $poplocal/local/rcmenu/rcmenu.p


Thereafter the following command will make the package available
(assuming that rclib has been installed):

    uses rcmenulib

Gradually, file headers will be changed to reflect the new location.

2002
7 Sep 2002 (Aaron Sloman)
    Following recent changes to rclib (see HELP rclib_news) altered
    menu_new_menu to ignore mouse movements.
    Slight changes made to improve TEACH menu_demo.p

1999
18 Sep 1999 (Aaron Sloman)
    Altered "define :menu" and menu_new_menu so that menus can now have
    symbolic position location specifiers, e.g.
        {right top}     {middle bottom} as in rc_new_window_object.
    See HELP RCLIB

26 Aug 1999 (Aaron Sloman)
    Further revisions of individual library files to make them use rclib
    facilities instead of facitilities dependent on motif and propsheet.
    New type of file browser installed, based on rc_browse_files

11 Aug 1999 (Aaron Sloman)
    Core mechanisms completely replaced by RCLIB mechanisms instead
    of propsheet. So this no longer depends on motif. This depends
    on the following files having been changed:

        rcmenu/auto/define_menu.p
            Altered definition of the define :menu form, to use new
            mechanisms.
        rcmenu/auto/menu_centrebox.p
            No longer needed. It will either be removed or redefined to
            use rc_control_panel
        rcmenu/auto/menu_new_menu.p
            The core procedure for creating menus was rewritten to use
            rc_control_panel. This means that the available facilities
            and syntax for define :menu have been extended far beyond
            what was previously possible using propsheet.
        rcmenu/auto/menu_set_command.p
            Revised to use rc_getinput
        rcmenu/auto/ved_menu.p
            Revised not to compile puilib and menulib
        rcmenu/auto/ved_menu_grep.p
            Altered to use rc_control_panel
        rcmenu/auto/ved_menu_search.p
            Altered to use rc_control_panel. Also made more general.
        rcmenu/auto/ved_menu_subs.p
            Altered to use rc_control_panel. Also made more general,
            allowing many more "search and replace" ranges.

        rcmenu/menus/menu_compiling.p
        rcmenu/menus/menu_dired.p
        rcmenu/menus/menu_editor.p
        rcmenu/menus/menu_toplevel.p
        rcmenu/teach/menu_demo.p
            These sample menus either required  minor changes to make
            them work or have been changed to offer new options.

        A full current list of menus can be created by doing

            cd $poplocal/local/rcmenu
            ./mkbuttonlist

        After that, HELP * MENUBUTTONS will show all the menus, in
        alphabetical order.

1995
Jan 30 1995 (Aaron Sloman)
    Several changes, including minor bug fixes, but above all a lot
    of the menus in menu/menus that were previously separate single
    column panels have been merged into double column panels. It is
    hoped that this will be less confusing.

    See TEACH MENU_DEMO.P for an example of a set of facilities that
    have nothing to do with VED. Instead there are panels to control
    (asynchronously) what is happening in a dynamic display.

    Some minor bug fixes in $poplocal/local/pui including documentation.
    Probably could do with pruning some of the trivial examples. Also
    could do with a pui interface to the scrolling list file tool.

Jan 22 1995 (Aaron Sloman)
    The core of the package has been reimplemented using new facilities
    in propsheet. It uses the new LIB PUI_POPUPTOOL package
    described in HELP * POPUPTOOL.

    It should now work in Motif as well as Openlook

    The format of menus has changed as buttons now use the "oneof"
    menu option in Propsheet. The menus should be more compact.

    It is possible to specify that the menu should be presented with
    N columns, by using the {cols N} descriptor after the name string
    in the define :menu format.

    The "ps_" prefix has been changed to "menu_"

    Some redundand procedures have been removed.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1993
Dec 12th (Aaron Sloman)
    There have been massive changes, to make the system more compatible
    with XVED, to remove bugs, to increase functionality, and improve
    documentation. Two extensively revised documentation files:

        HELP  * VED_MENU
        TEACH * VED_MENU
            (The latter available from the TUTORIAL button on the
            toplevel menu)

        Several changes documented in LIB * VED_MENU
            Search for History

        A new menu has been added for XVED facilities.
        Some items have moved from the toplevel menu to the
            Utilities menu


Oct 5th (Aaron Sloman)
    --- There has been a major re-structuring of the menu library, and
        some new utilities have been introduced. In particular, new
        or revised menus are
            toplevel
            compiling
            user
            unix
            files
            editor
            teach

        New or modified utility procedures are
            ps_dismiss_all
                (Now doesn't cause errors when applied to non-live
                widgets)
            ved_compilemenu
            ved_copymenu
            ved_edmenu




--- $poplocal/local/rcmenu/help/menunews
--- Copyright University of Birmingham 2002. All rights reserved. ------
