After a cursory examination of the new code generation features of POV-Ray
3.1, I am pleased with the way things have been rearranged. It appears to me
that one can now customize how the "Insert" menu works (is that true?). If
it is, it seems to me that one way to add some capability to the IDE is now
easier, because it is no big deal to write an application which pops up a
custom dialog to enter information and then to write it to a file (maybe to
a file which is present in the "Insert" menu structure). Then the question
comes to mind: is it then possible to command the IDE to insert the code
which was just written to a file? Can a menu item be selected
programmatically without much trouble, via DDE, OLE, or some other
interface? And can the code in the currently active buffer be parsed and
modified under program control?

- jon -

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"Jon Berndt" <jsb### [at] hal-pcorg> wrote:

>After a cursory examination of the new code generation features of POV-Ray
>3.1, I am pleased with the way things have been rearranged. It appears to me
>that one can now customize how the "Insert" menu works (is that true?). If

You have always been able to do this.

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"Jon Berndt" <jsb### [at] hal-pcorg> wrote:
>After a cursory examination of the new code generation features of POV-Ray
>3.1, I am pleased with the way things have been rearranged. It appears to me
>that one can now customize how the "Insert" menu works (is that true?). If
>it is, it seems to me that one way to add some capability to the IDE is now
>easier, because it is no big deal to write an application which pops up a
>custom dialog to enter information and then to write it to a file (maybe to
>a file which is present in the "Insert" menu structure). Then the question
>comes to mind: is it then possible to command the IDE to insert the code
>which was just written to a file? Can a menu item be selected
>programmatically without much trouble, via DDE, OLE, or some other
>interface? And can the code in the currently active buffer be parsed and
>modified under program control?

Actually, you could customize the insert menu (the one that inserts scene templates)
long before, the file format was documented years ago, originally on the Mac :-)


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany

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On Mon, 12 Oct 1998 22:49:33 GMT, new### [at] DESPAMpovrayorg
(povray.org admin team) wrote:

>"Jon Berndt" <jsb### [at] hal-pcorg> wrote:
>
>>After a cursory examination of the new code generation features of POV-Ray
>>3.1, I am pleased with the way things have been rearranged. It appears to me
>>that one can now customize how the "Insert" menu works (is that true?). If
>
>You have always been able to do this.

Only if you had delphi.  The insert menu was handled by the editor
DLL.  Unless you just wanted to add static text; yes, that was always
possible.

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>Unless you just wanted to add static text; yes, that was always possible.

Which is what I presumed you were referring to. The basic functionality
of the insert menu has not changed one bit between 3.0 and 3.1. Just the
way it's built (static text file vs directory structure).

At a later date we intend to allow much more flexibility with the insert menu ;
changing it to a directory structure was part of this strategy. No timetable
for this has been set.

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>Unless you just wanted to add static text; yes, that was always possible.

Which is what I presumed you were referring to. The basic functionality
of the insert menu has not changed one bit between 3.0 and 3.1. Just the
way it's built (static text file vs directory structure).

At a later date we intend to allow much more flexibility with the insert menu ;
changing it to a directory structure was part of this strategy. No timetable
for this has been set. No specific features have been set. However, it is
likely to include (but not be limited to) the ability to prompt the user for
parameters and run calculations (most likely using wscript), and to assign a
bitmap or animated GIF to represent an object, colour, or texture.

This will be achieved by simply placing the appropriate file in the directory
(hence the reason for going to dirs). For example, if you had a texture file
called 'my texture.txt', you could add 'my texture.bmp' in that same directory
to represent it. And so forth.

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>Which is what I presumed you were referring to. The basic functionality
>of the insert menu has not changed one bit between 3.0 and 3.1. Just the
>way it's built (static text file vs directory structure).

>At a later date we intend to allow much more flexibility with the insert
menu ;
>changing it to a directory structure was part of this strategy. No
timetable
>for this has been set. No specific features have been set. However, it is
>likely to include (but not be limited to) the ability to prompt the user
for
>parameters and run calculations (most likely using wscript), and to assign
a
>bitmap or animated GIF to represent an object, colour, or texture.


I meant the directory structure - I like that better. However, I hadn't
really looked at the way 3.0 did it, either, so I was actually comparing it
to pre-3.0, I think. The answer to my original question, partially, comes
from your statement above about what may be coming at a later date: "The
ability to prompt the user for parameters and run calculations ...". IMHO,
this would open a floodgate of possibilities, add-ons, customizations, etc.
It's a great idea.

- jon -

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