@database MagicMenu.guide
@width 77
@author "Olaf Barthel"
@node main "MagicMenu"

                               MagicMenu 2.34
                     A utility to enhance the Intuition
                            pull-down menu system

                        Written by Martin Korndörfer,                                     
                            Olaf `Olsen' Barthel,
                          Jens `Damato' Langner and
                              Stephan Rupprecht

                 Artwork created by Mario 'padrino' Cattaneo

                      I.    @{"Installation              " link Installation}
                      II.   @{"DANGERS                   " link DANGERS}
                      III.  @{"The preferences editor    " link Prefs}
                      IV.   @{"Keyboard control          " link Keyboard}
                      V.    @{"Frequently asked questions" link FAQ}
                      VI.   @{"History                   " link History}
                      VII.  @{"Translations              " link Translations}
                      VIII. @{"Authors & credits         " link Authors}
                      IX.   @{"Registration              " link Registration}
                      X.    @{"Support                   " link Support}
@endnode

@node Installation
MagicMenu consists of two programs. Drop the "MagicMenu" program into the
"WBStartup" drawer of your system boot partition and put "MagicMenuPrefs"
into the "Prefs" drawer on the same partition. Please note that MagicMenu
is designed for 68020+ processors and will crash on older cpus!

If you do not have "gtlayout.library" installed already, you should copy it
into the "Libs:" drawer. The preferences editor depends upon it.

Both programs can use configuration information as found in the icon
tooltypes:

   @{"MagicMenu tooltypes     " link MMToolTypes}
   @{"MagicMenuPrefs tooltypes" link MMPrefsToolTypes}
@endnode

@node MMToolTypes "MagicMenu tooltypes"
MagicMenu is a commodities tool. This means, it filters user input and reacts
to it. It also sports a well-defined set of icon tooltypes:

@{b}CX_PRIORITY=<-128..127>@{ub}

   All commodities tools receive input events through a prioritized queue of
   handlers. This means, the higher the CX_PRIORITY value, the sooner a tool
   will receive an event.

@{b}CX_POPKEY=<hotkey>@{ub}

   You can invoke the MagicMenu preferences editor with a hotkey combination.
   The default is "control alt space", which means that you need to hold
   down the @{b}[Ctrl]@{ub} and @{b}[Alt]@{ub} key and then press the @{b}[Space]@{ub} key to invoke
   the preferences program. For a complete description of the hotkey syntax,
   see your AmigaOS manual.

@{b}CX_POPUP=<YES or NO>@{ub}

   If you want MagicMenu to open the MagicMenu preferences editor immediately
   when it is started, set this tooltype value to "YES". Otherwise, leave it
   as "NO".

@{b}DONOTWAIT@{ub}

   The Workbench will process this tooltype when MagicMenu is started from the
   WBStartup drawer. It tells Workbench not to wait for MagicMenu to exit
   before launching the next program it finds in this drawer.

@{b}TOOLPRI=<-128..127>@{ub}

   This is another tooltype the Workbench will pay attention to. It defines
   the task priority MagicMenu will have assigned when it is launched.

@{b}STARTPRI=<-128..127>@{ub}

   This tooltype defines the order in which MagicMenu will be launched with
   the other tools in the WBStartup drawer. The higher this value, the
   sooner it will be started.
   
@{b}ENABLEPPC=<YES or NO>@{ub}
   If you want to disable the WarpUP/PPC support of MagicMenu (used to speedup
   transparent menus), set this tooltype value to "NO". By default, the PPC 
   support is enabled.
   
@{b}PPCDIRECT=<YES or NO>@{ub}
   Enable this option to get maximum speed out of the WarpUp support code. When
   enabled the PPC will read from and write to the bitmaps directly.
@endnode

@node MMPrefsToolTypes "MagicMenuPrefs tooltypes"
The MagicMenu preferences editor works like every other AmigaOS preferences
editor you have ever used. It supports the following tooltypes:

@{b}EDIT@{ub}

   This brings up the preferences editor window, which is the default
   action for this program.

@{b}SAVE@{ub}

   The current MagicMenu settings will be saved permanently. If you
   select a MagicMenu settings file and then double-click on the
   preferences editor, it will read the file and save it permanently
   to disk.

@{b}USE@{ub}

   Reads the currently active MagicMenu settings file and tells
   MagicMenu to use these. You can also select a MagicMenu settings
   file and then double-click on the preferences editor.

@{b}PUBSCREEN=<public screen name>@{ub}

   The name of a public screen the preferences editor window is to
   open on. If no screen name is given or if the named screen
   cannot be found, the editor window will open on the default
   public screen.

@{b}CREATEICONS=<YES or NO>@{ub}

   If you wish to save settings files with the preferences editor,
   this tooltype controls whether the files will have icons attached
   (and thus, will be visible from Workbench) or not.

@{b}CX_PRIORITY=<-128..127>@{ub}

   All commodities tools receive input events through a prioritized queue of
   handlers. This means, the higher the CX_PRIORITY value, the sooner a tool
   will receive an event.

@{b}CX_POPKEY=<hotkey>@{ub}

   You can invoke the MagicMenu preferences editor with a hotkey combination.
   The default is "control alt space", which means that you need to hold
   down the @{b}[Ctrl]@{ub} and @{b}[Alt]@{ub} key and then press the @{b}[Space]@{ub} key to invoke
   the preferences program. For a complete description of the hotkey syntax,
   see your AmigaOS manual.

@{b}CX_POPUP=<YES or NO>@{ub}

   If you want MagicMenu to open the MagicMenu preferences editor immediately
   when it is started, set this tooltype value to "YES". Otherwise, leave it
   as "NO".
@endnode

@node DANGERS
MagicMenu exploits features of the Amiga operating system man was not meant
to meddle with. Essentially, this means MagicMenu qualifies as a hack or
kludge. You can quickly get into trouble when using it, while on the other
hand it may work perfectly for you, with no problem whatsoever.
   MagicMenu interacts with Intuition, the entity that runs the Amiga user
interface and the pull-down menus. It intercepts normal menu rendering by
looking for mouse or keyboard events that would normally get Intuition to do
menu operations. The normal Intuition menus are replaced by what MagicMenu
has to offer. The catch is that for Intuition menu rendering is something
very special. For example, while the menus are displayed no window will open,
no text on the screen will scroll and no window contents will be updated.
This is because Intuition enters a special state when doing the menus in
which all other display operations are delayed until the users lets go of the
menu button.
   Unfortunately, MagicMenu cannot do the same trick, which can lead to
collisions. The machine may appear to lock up, the mouse will stop moving and
you'll see every sign of a system crash. In such a case Intuition has tried
to get a hold of the resources MagicMenu owns at the moment and is waiting
for MagicMenu to release them. But MagicMenu is unable to release these
resources until Intuition has stopped waiting for them to be released. The
net effect is a classical deadlock.
   MagicMenu will eventually back out of the deadlock after a certain amount
of time but the deadlock can be avoided altogether if you configure MagicMenu
to run in non-blocking mode (see @{"Preferences/Non blocking" link Prefs_Look_and_usage 152} for more information).
However, the non-blocking mode has the effect that display updates by other
programs that have windows open on the same screen will not be halted or
delayed. Thus, if you are used to halt text scrolling by holding down the
menu button, it will no longer work in non-blocking mode.

Some programs may interact strangely with the way MagicMenu renders and
builds its menus. If you suspect foul play, hold down the @{b}[Ctrl]@{ub} key or one
of the @{b}[Alt]@{ub} keys while you hold down the menu button: MagicMenu will get out
of the way and let Intuition handle the pull-down menu business as usual.

You might want to investigate the effects of the @{"Verify patches" link Prefs_Look_and_usage 234}
and @{"Fix patches" link Prefs_Look_and_usage 250} switches.
@endnode

@node Prefs "The preferences editor"
The preferences editor window consists of three pages of configuration
information:

   @{"Look and usage  " link Prefs_Look_and_usage}
   @{"Keyboard control" link Prefs_keyboard_control}

   @{"Colour control  " link Prefs_colour_control}

   @{b}Note: this page is available only under Kickstart 3.x and if the screen
         the preferences editor window opens on has enough colour slots
         available to display the menu sample image (64 colours are the
         minimum requirements).@{ub}

In addition to the configuration pages, there is set of pull-down menus
to choose from:

   @{"Project " link Prefs_Project}
   @{"Edit    " link Prefs_Edit}
   @{"Settings" link Prefs_Settings}
@endnode

@node Prefs_Look_and_usage "Look and usage"
@{b}Pull-down menu:

   Usage@{ub}

      Three options are available:

         - Intuition compatible

           The menus will appear when you hold down the menu button and
           will go away when you let go of the button.

         - Sticky mouse button

           The menus will appear when you hold down the menu button and
           will stay when you let go of the button. To make them go away
           press the menu button again.

         - Smart select

           The menus will appear when you hold down the menu button and
           will stay when you let go of the button. To pick menu items,
           use the select button (left mouse button). To make the menus
           go away press the menu button again.

   @{b}Look@{ub}

      Three options are available:

         - Standard

           Menus are rendered in the familiar flat black/white style
           Intuition uses.

         - Old 3D

           This menu rendering style is similar to the 3D button
           style the operating system uses. It also has custom
           imagery for the checkmark and the Amiga key.

         - Multicolour 3D

           The "gaudy" style popularized by MagicWB. This has
           custom imagery for the seperator bars, the checkmark
           and the Amiga key. It makes use of a special set of
           configurable user interface colours.

@{b}Pop-Up menu:

   Usage@{ub}

      Three options are available:

         - Intuition compatible

           The menus will appear when you hold down the menu button and
           will go away when you let go of the button.

         - Sticky mouse button

           The menus will appear when you hold down the menu button and
           will stay when you let go of the button. To make them go away
           press the menu button again.

         - Smart select

           The menus will appear when you hold down the menu button and
           will stay when you let go of the button. To pick menu items,
           use the select button (left mouse button). To make the menus
           go away press the menu button again.

   @{b}Look@{ub}

      Three options are available:

         - Standard

           Menus are rendered in the familiar flat black/white style
           Intuition uses.

         - Old 3D

           This menu rendering style is similar to the 3D button
           style the operating system uses. It also has custom
           imagery for the checkmark and the Amiga key.

         - Multicolour 3D

           The "gaudy" style popularized by MagicWB. This has
           custom imagery for the seperator bars, the checkmark
           and the Amiga key. It makes use of a special set of
           configurable user interface colours.

   @{b}Centre boxes@{ub}

      If this switch is enabled, MagicMenu will try to centre the
      menu title, menu and submenu boxes right below the mouse
      pointer.

@{b}General:

   Type@{ub}

      Three options are available:

         - Pull-down menu only

           MagicMenu will stick to the original style of rendering
           menus from the top of the screen downwards. The menus
           may look different, but the placement of the items will
           be just like Intuition would choose it.

         - Pop-up menu only

           Every time you invoke the menus, they will pop up right
           below the mouse pointer.

         - Mouse pointer position dependent

           If the mouse pointer is in the screen title bar,
           MagicMenu will display a pull-down menu. If the mouse
           pointer is in a different position, it will display
           pop-up menus instead.

   @{b}Separator bar style@{ub}

      Two options are available, and they only affect the multicolour 3D mode:

         - Dent

           Separator bars do not extend beyond the menu labels they
           separate and will similar to the "traditional" indented Amiga
           bevel boxes.

         - Gap

           Separator bars will extend right to the edges of the menu,
           separating not just the menu labels but the menu items
           themselves.
           
   @{b}Backfillimage@{ub}
   
      Name of an imagefile to be used as background for the menus. The backfill-
      image is only available to screens with at least 15bit!

   @{b}Mark submenus@{ub}

      Menus that have submenus attached will receive a marker at the right
      hand side of the menu box (unless the items are already marked as
      such).

   @{b}Double borders@{ub}

      This affects the menu rendering style in the old and multicolour
      3D modes: the rendering style of the menu borders will be changed
      and the item highlighting style will be reversed.

   @{b}Non blocking@{ub}

      This switch toggles between two fundamentally different modes
      of MagicMenu operation:

      - If disabled, menu rendering takes place on a screen only
        MagicMenu has access to. Windows will not open, text will
        not scroll, windows will not be updated. This is most
        similar to the way standard Intuition menus are rendered.
        But that's not the whole story. The big difference is that
        Intuition does not really know that MagicMenu has taken
        control of the screen. This may cause Intuition to fall
        into a trap when it badly wants to take control of the
        screen as well. In that case the Amiga will appear to
        lock up, the mouse will cease moving and the whole thing
        will have the uncanny appearance of a machine that has not
        only crashed, but joined the choir invisible. This can
        be a little unnerving at times, especially if the machine
        does not only appear to be crashed, but really has joined
        its maker. You'll know for sure when MagicMenu backs out of
        this deadlock after a few seconds. If it doesn't, you'll
        have to reboot the machine. So there.

        Another effect this mode has is that all menu rendering
        will go straight to the screen bitmap. So if a menu
        layout is a little "off", it will happily trash innocent
        memory when it is rendered.

        Think again: if you want trouble, this is the right
        setting for you.

      - If this switch is enabled, display updates will not be
        blocked until the menu closes. This has several advantages
        over the blocking mode:

        · Intuition can still take control of the screen when it
          wants to. There is close to no chance at all for Intuition
          to lock up in this mode.

        · Menu rendering is safe. Even weird, exotic and broken
          menu item layouts will work without trashing memory.

        The big disadvantage of this mode is that it does not
        block display updates.

   @{b}Highlight disabled menu items@{ub}

      By default, moving the mouse across a disabled menu item will not
      highlight that item. If you still want the highlighting, such as
      for reasons of visual consistency, this is the switch you would
      need to check.

   @{b}Transparency@{ub}

      On high- and truecolour displays, MagicMenu can play tricks with
      the menu background. Instead of rendering it in the usual "dull"
      background colour, the background can be made to "shine through"
      the menu background. This takes extra effort and is not
      recommended for daily use. This option is restricted to the
      multicolour 3D mode.

   @{b}Menus open delayed@{ub}

      Normally, menus and submenus open as soon as the mouse pointer
      moves across them. This can slow things down with complex menus.
      If you choose to have menus opening delayed, you will have to
      stop the mouse from moving for a tick before the menus will
      eventually unfold.

   @{b}Draw frames around menu items@{ub}

      In 3D mode, the single menu entries are surrounded by a recessed
      3D frame once they become "active". This can make the text a little
      hard to read. If you do not want the frames to appear, you can turn
      them off with this switch.

   @{b}Cast drop shadows@{ub}

      You can tell MagicMenu to draw drop shadows below the menus it displays
      if you enable this switch. Please note that the shadows will appear only
      in 3D mode.

   @{b}Verify patches@{ub}

      This and the following option ("Fix patches") can be used to make
      MagicMenu work more reliably. As was explained before, MagicMenu
      will plant a number of patches in the operating system. It expects
      that it will be the first client to be invoked when the patched
      operating system calls are made. If this fails for some reason, such
      as other applications planting their patches on top of MagicMenu,
      then the results may be undefined. You may get system crashes,
      or the system may even appear to freeze. If you enable the
      "Verify patches" option, MagicMenu will regularly check if it is
      still the first client to be called from an operating system
      patch. If this is no longer the case, MagicMenu will shut down
      and effectively cease operation. Once this has happened, the only
      way to reactivate MagicMenu is to stop and restart it.

   @{b}Fix patches@{ub}

      If enabled, this option will cause MagicMenu to examine every
      new operating system patch to be planted, checking if one such
      patch would be placed on top of a currently active MagicMenu
      patch. When this happens, MagicMenu will modify the new patch
      to be installed in such a way as to make sure that MagicMenu's
      patch stays the first to be invoked.
@endnode

@node Prefs_keyboard_control "Keyboard control"
This page holds the controls for the keyboard control option, which is what
you get when you press a special key combination or @{b}[Right Amiga]@{ub}+@{b}[Right
Alt]@{ub}. The menus will open, for you to select an item with the cursor keys.

@{b}Keyboard control enabled@{ub}

   This switch enables the keyboard control mode.

@{b}Move mouse pointer to menu bar@{ub}

   While the keyboard control mode is in effect, the mouse pointer
   will be repositioned at the lower right corner of the screen
   title bar.

@{b}Activate with [Right Amiga]+[Right Alt]@{ub}

   This switch enables the easiest keyboard shortcut. Whenever you
   use the standard Intuition mouse button "emulation" MagicMenu
   will take over and go into keyboard control mode.

@{b}Keyboard shortcut@{ub}

   This is another shortcut to get MagicMenu into keyboard control
   mode. The default key combination is "ramiga space", which means
   that you will have to hold down the @{b}[Right Amiga]@{ub} key and then
   press the @{b}[Space]@{ub} key to get into keyboard control mode.
@endnode

@node Prefs_colour_control "Colour control"

 @{b}Note: this page is available only under Kickstart 3.x and if the screen
       the preferences editor window opens on has enough colour slots
       available to display the menu sample image (64 colours are the
       minimum requirements).@{ub}

On this page you can configure the colours MagicMenu will use when rendering
the multicolour 3D look menus.

   On the left hand side of the window you can see a menu sample with a
   button below it. To select a menu colour to edit, either pick it with
   this button or click the mouse inside the menu sample image (the editor
   will then use the colour of the pixel you have clicked on).

   On the right hand side of the window you find will a vertical slider, a
   colour wheel and three Red/Green/Blue or Hue/Saturation/Brightness
   sliders below it. This is where you change the colour you have
   selected.

@{b}Colour matching precision@{ub}

   When picking the colours to use for menu rendering from the set available
   to a screen MagicMenu may not get exactly the colours it was asking for
   but whatever the operating system can provide and comes close to what
   was requested. How much error MagicMenu will tolerate can be controlled
   with this slider, which can be set to four positions: "Exact" is the most
   precise (it will accept no error) and "GUI" is the least precise.

@{b}Prefer screen colours@{ub}

   Normally, MagicMenu will use the colours you have selected above when
   choosing how the menus should look like. But you can also have MagicMenu
   use the current user interface colours of the screen instead. To do so,
   enable this switch.
@endnode

@node Prefs_Project "Project"
@{b}Open...@{ub}

   This where you select a settings file to load into the editor.

@{b}Save as...@{ub}

   With this menu item you can store the currently loaded settings
   in a separate file.

@{b}About...@{ub}

   Displays information about the authors and the program.

@{b}Quit@{ub}

   This terminates the program.
@endnode

@node Prefs_Edit "Edit"
@{b}Reset to defaults@{ub}

   This will reset the current program settings to "factory defaults".

@{b}Last saved@{ub}

   The editor will try to retrieve the last saved settings file.
   If this is not possible, the current settings will be left untouched.

@{b}Restore@{ub}

   This will restore the settings that were in effect when the editor
   was started.
@endnode

@node Prefs_Settings "Settings"
@{b}Create icons?@{ub}

   This menu controls whether settings files saved with this editor
   will have icons attached (and thus, will be visible from Workbench)
   or not.

@{b}Slider color model@{ub}

   The sliders below the colour wheel on the @{"Colour control" link Prefs_colour_control} page can
   operate either in Red/Green/Blue mode or in Hue/Saturation/Brightness
   mode. This is where you choose which mode to use.
@endnode

@node Keyboard "Keyboard control"
Menus are normally entirely mouse-driven, but there are few things you can do
by keyboard:

@{b}Activate the menu@{ub}

   You can activate the menu and bring MagicMenu into keyboard control mode
   by holding down a special combination of keys. The default key
   combinations are @{b}[Right Amiga]@{ub}+@{b}[Space]@{ub} and @{b}[Right Amiga]@{ub}+@{b}[Right Alt]@{ub}.
   The menu will open and allow you to select the menu item you want with
   the cursor keys. Press @{b}[Return]@{ub} to select an item or to open a submenu.
   Press @{b}[Esc]@{ub} to return to the previous menu hierarchy or to close the
   menu altogether.

@{b}Use the normal Intuition menus@{ub}

   You can tell MagicMenu to get out of the way and let Intuition take care
   of the menus by holding down either @{b}[Alt]@{ub} or @{b}[Ctrl]@{ub} key when you
   press the menu button.

@{b}Change the look of the menus@{ub}

   While the menu is active, press @{b}[Ctrl]@{ub} to toggle between 3D mode
   and the flat standard mode.
@endnode

@node FAQ "Frequently asked questions"
MagicMenu and the preferences editor may not always do what you expect them
to. Here is a short list of such situations and an explanation of what has
happened:


@{b}I cannot configure the multicolour menu colours@{ub}
The preferences program needs at least 24 colours to display the settings
page that controls the multicolour menu. As the operating system will always
allocate 11 colours for itself (fewer if there are fewer colours available
on a screen), this means you will need to run the preferences program on a
screen with at least 64 colours available.


@{b}The multicolour menu never shows up, I always get the old 3D look menu@{ub}
For the multicolour menu to work, MagicMenu needs to allocate the colours
that make up its display from the set the menu's screen has to offer. Not
all screens allow for this to work, as they may not have any unallocated
pens to work with. There might not even be a colour palette in place which
already has the required colours set. In these cases MagicMenu will fail to
obtain the colours it needs and step back to the old style 3D menu.
MagicMenu will also refuse to use the multicolour menu if the screen to use
is a low resolution screen.


@{b}Sometimes I don't get any menu to show up at all@{ub}
MagicMenu can run out of memory trying to display the menu and it can also
fail to display a menu due to not enough room available on the screen. In
such cases MagicMenu will have stopped building the menu for display before
it has a chance to back out and hand over the job to Intuition. Sorry,
that's all it can do then.
   It's also possible that MagicMenu backs out of displaying a menu in order
to avoid a fatal system deadlock. This may happen so quickly you won't even
notice that the menus came up after all.
   In both situations, nothing should be keeping you from retrying to bring
up the menus again. It should eventually work.


@{b}The menu changes the screen colours when it appears@{ub}
Some applications open screens which allow other software to allocate
colours from the palette. But not all these applications seem to know that
some of these colours may be allocated and changed by software like
MagicMenu. The MultiView Workbench utility is such an application (actually,
this particular bug was fixed in the MultiView version distributed as part
of the AmigaOS 3.5 update). MagicMenu will end up changing the screen colour
palette since the screen parameters permit this. Other applications may make
the same mistake. The only way to avoid this is to put MagicMenu into the
old 3D colour look.


@{b}Images and the text frames overlap the menu item text@{ub}
The program to create the menus also determines how they are placed. The
items need not be placed vertically, below one another, but may be placed in
any order there is. MagicMenu cannot just choose to move the items around to
make room without running the risk of covering other items and really
screwing things up. Thus, the text frames can be only as large as the menu
item sizes permit.


@{b}MagicMenu conflicts with another utility that maps a certain feature to
the menu button@{ub}
Provided that the "other" utility is a commodities tool just like MagicMenu
you can use the CX_PRIORITY=<number> tool type to select the order in which
input events are processed. If you want MagicMenu to take care of processing
the menu button, select a lower priority, e.g. make "CX_PRIORITY=-1".


@{b}Menu operations become terribly sluggish on 15/16/24 bit screens@{ub}
Well? That's supposed to happen. You might be able to cut the time by
turning off the @{"Preferences/Non blocking" link Prefs_Look_and_usage 152} option.


@{b}MagicMenu fails with "Error initializing system patches".@{ub}
There are three reasons why MagicMenu can fail with this error:

- It ran out of memory when preparing to install the patches

- MagicMenu is already running on that machine (unlikely; execution
  would have taken an entirely different path as this condition is
  detected a lot earlier during program startup).

- You had an older MagicMenu version running on your machine before
  you tried to start the new version.

The last reason is the most likely. Unless you do something very strange in
your Workbench startup procedure the problem should go away after replacing
the old version with the new one and rebooting your machine.


@{b}The menus don't show up at all, the Amiga just freezes and crashes when the
right mouse button is pressed.@{ub}
Take care if you have several utilities running that plaster the operating
system with patches. For some of the patches the order in which they are
installed matters greatly. Whether MagicMenu is the first program to install
its patches or the last one can make the decisive difference between a crash
and a working system. You might want to investigate the effects of the
@{"Verify patches" link Prefs_Look_and_usage 234} and @{"Fix patches" link Prefs_Look_and_usage 250} switches.


@{b}I dropped the MagicMenu program into my "SYS:WBStartup" drawer. Now every
time I reboot my system, the MagicMenu preferences editor pops up. What's
wrong?@{ub}
MagicMenu may notice that your previously active MagicMenu preferences no
longer match the structure and features it requires. This frequently happens
after a new MagicMenu version has been released. In the preferences editor,
just click on the "Save" button and the problem should go away. Please also
consult the program's documentation: you have missed an important change.

If the problem persist, verify that the versions of the MagicMenuPrefs
program and the MagicMenu program match. If they don't, you may need a more
recent version of the MagicMenuPrefs program.

(to be continued)
@endnode

@node History
MagicMenu versions 0.01 through 2.3 were developed by Martin Korndörfer. With
V2.4 development passed into the hands of Olaf `Olsen' Barthel. Later with
V2.32 development were passed into the hands of Jens `Damato` Langner and
Stephan Rupprecht.

(Most recent change comes last)

MagicMenu 2.4 (beta)
====================

- Improved overall stability under CyberGraphX; the menu rendering code was
  actually peeking Screen->BitMap instead of Screen->RastPort.BitMap, which
  among other things could screw up rendering in deep display modes. Menu
  rendering now works consistently in display depths beyond 8 bit.

- Removed references to SetABPenDrMd() where they were in the wrong place.

- The code that sends the IntuiMessage should be less timing critical and
  simpler now. It fires off the message and starts to wait for a response
  if necessary rather than allocating timer requests, message ports, etc.
  on the spot and then jumping into action.

- Removed the routine that complains about timed out IntuiMessages. It's
  nice to know that something went wrong, but not that helpful if you
  cannot do anything about it.

- Since IntuiMessage processing works differently now, MagicMenu now checks
  for pending, unreplied messages.

- The routine that displays the menu and handles the IDCMP_MENUVERIFY
  case should be better protected against Intuition state changes and
  stale pointers. There is still a catch in that the Window to receive
  the menu event may close or dispose of its menu strip before the
  event arrives. But actually, Intuition protects itself against
  such eventualities, anyway.

- For a Window without a UserPort, MagicMenu could lose memory. This
  has been fixed.

- When an IDCMP_MENUVERIFY message times out, the window to cancel
  it now properly receives its IDCMP_MOUSEBUTTONS/MENUUP and
  IDCMP_MENUPICK/MENUNULL messages (as per the RKMs). When menu
  rendering is finished the other inactive IDCMP_MENUVERIFY windows
  on the screen now receive the proper IDCMP_MOUSEBUTTONS/MENUUP
  messages.

- Changed the way BOOPSI images in menus are handled. MagicMenu no longer
  tries to remap them as if they were BitMap images. Right now it turns
  them into BitMap images and then remaps them.

- Redid the image remapping code. It no longer fiddles with the raw BitMap
  data but uses the Blitter.

- Added a patch for ObtainGIRPort() which should make all the SafeGIRPort
  patches redundant that existed just in support of MagicMenu. The patch
  checks if the screen it should work upon is currently locked by
  MagicMenu. If so, ObtainGIRPort() will return NULL. This is a little
  dangerous since some built-in Intuition classes do not protect themselves
  against ObtainGIRPort() returning NULL. I can't make the patch tell
  Intuition to wait until the screen is ready again either, as this would
  eventually deadlock Intuition.

- Changed the new 3D look text highlight colour to be more consistent with
  the way gadget text highlighting works.

- MagicMenu no longer detaches from the Shell it was started from. If
  you need such a feature, use "run >nil: MagicMenu".

- MagicMenu now works with Final Writer. Final Writer calls
  Clear/ResetMenuStrip whilst in MENUVERIFY state. Previously,
  MagicMenu did not allow this to happen, causing the verify message
  to time out.

- The phony IntuiMessages are now ExtIntuiMessages with a NULL tablet
  data pointer and proper time stamp information.


MagicMenu 2.5 (beta)
====================

- The ObtainGIRPort() patch now handles the NULL parameter case
  gracefully. Some BOOPSI gadget dispatchers actually end up invoking
  the draw method in the OM_NEW case with the GInfo pointer not
  yet initialized.


MagicMenu 2.6 (beta)
====================

- The new 3D colour mode could screw up the screen colour palette.
  The code did not check for pen allocation failures and, since the
  pen variables were unsigned, the deallocation code would end up
  freeing the same pen over and over again.

- Changed the commodities filter setup code. All the initializations
  are now done at program startup time. MagicMenu enables the filter
  later instead of building the filter when the menu comes up.

- Changed the way bevel boxes are rendered. Instead of calling
  Move..Draw..Draw over and over again it now uses RectFill()
  where possible. For vertical and horizontal lines this is
  actually faster than calling Move/Draw.

- Made small visual changes to the menu box and title bar rendering
  in new 3D look mode.

- With the non-blocking option enabled, the new 3D look menus now
  sport drop shadows.

- In non-blocking mode MagicMenu no longer uses SuperBitMap windows.

- Removed the "demo" menu from the prefs program.

- Integrated Mario's new imagery, including the new colour map
  that goes with it.


MagicMenu 2.7 (beta)
====================

- The drop shadows no longer cause windows to be moved away from
  the screen right and bottom edges.

- Disabled menus, items and subitems are no longer rendered with
  a frame in new 3D mode.

- The drop shadows were only transparent with CyberGraphX.
  I added another patch to allow this for any Amiga (and which
  magically also boosts layer creation speed).

- One WaitBlit() was missing in the remapped image cleanup code.

- Removed the "clipping" option. It is now enabled by default in
  order to avoid big trouble on the way.

- If MagicMenu cannot reuse the patch table installed by an older
  MagicMenu version that was removed from memory just before the
  new one was run, it now complains and exits without crashing.

- I tried to make MagicMenu safer by reducing the rendering options
  to two alternatives only: you either select non-blocking or you
  don't. Both options imply clipped drawing operations, making it
  more difficult to trash memory on the way. The "direct draw"
  option is implicitely enabled for non-blocking mode and
  implicitely disabled for blocking mode. All this will slow down
  menu operations a bit, but better a little slower than a little
  sooner to crash.

- No longer fakes ClipRects and uses sleight-of-hand tricks to get
  away with it. Instead of calling SwapBitsRastPortClipRect()
  it now uses a much simpler technique to exchange the on-screen
  BitMap data and the menu imagery. This technique neither has
  nor requires the side-effects SwapBitsRastPortClipRect() has.

- Removed the CyberGraphX chunky option; it is now enabled all
  the time.

- New and improved colour remapping code. Much faster than the
  old blitter based stuff.

- All new preferences program. The prefs editor goes into
  SYS:Prefs. The new configuration files go into ENVARC:.
  Note that the new configuration files are not compatible
  with the old ones.

- Prefs program and main program now support localization.
  No catalogs are available yet, sorry.

- Non-blocking operation is now the default mode since it
  is less likely to trash memory, freeze the machine or
  crash it.


MagicMenu 2.8 (beta)
====================

- Added two more patches for WindowToBack() and
  MoveWindowInFrontOf().

- The prefs program should now consistently find the current
  preferences settings, even if MagicMenu is not running.

- Removed the ghosted text colour options. These colours are
  now connected to the background colour.

- The prefs program now has a proper version string.

- The keyboard control hotkey combination can be changed at
  run-time now.

- Resetting the preferences to defaults now properly updates
  the display and the colours.

- The layer patch was using the wrong rectangle offsets,
  causing superbitmap windows to screw up.

- The prefs program and the main program now both have
  new default minimum stack size limits. For the prefs
  program it's 10K and 8K for the main program.

- The menu image remapping routines show now treat images
  properly which make use of the PlanePick/PlaneOnOff combo.

- The main program will now find the prefs program when
  it should do. Previously, it would only start the prefs
  program if the main program was run from Shell.

- The colour remapping now also takes place in selected state
  images. The same colour remapping rules are applied for the
  highlight colour that are used for the normal background
  colour.

- Added tablet input event processing. So far only one
  tablet input device is reported to work properly. If there
  are more, I would like to know :)

- Rewrote the central menu event processing loop. MagicMenu
  should now snap out of an Intuition deadlock much faster
  than before. I also removed the global menu timeout,
  which is now redundant.

- The menus no longer pop out of multicolour style back
  into old 3D style without warning.

- Starting the main program twice now brings up the
  prefs editor, just like with any other commodities tool.

- Made the drop shadow a little smaller (4x4 instead of 6x6).

- Fixed two fatal bugs in the bitmap initialization code.

- Added two more patches, this time for OffMenu() and OnMenu().

- MagicMenu now supports menu lending. For this to work, I had
  to remove the "screen with the active menu pops to front"
  feature. This screen depth arrangement also got into trouble
  with child screens, which would always get popped to the
  background.

- The prefs program now sports a "Test" button. If the main
  program is not yet running when you hit this button, the
  prefs program will try to launch it.


MagicMenu 2.9 (beta)
====================

- Moved the default imagery back into chip RAM.

- When in keyboard control mode, [Shift]+[Esc] will abort
  the entire menu operation, no matter which menu hierarchy
  you are in.

- The 3D multicolour mode now requires that the menu font is
  at least nine pixels tall. If it is smaller, you will get
  the old 3D mode.

- Reworked the menu imagery and made sure that the MX and
  checkmark images match in size.

- Multicolour ghosted text no longer gets rendered over and
  over again when moving the mouse across it.

- When running out of pens for the gradient fill slider
  the prefs editor should now back out gracefully rather than
  end up trying to load colour register -1 with greyscale
  data. This could have been the reason for the inexplicable
  prefs editor crashes.


MagicMenu 2.10 (beta)
=====================

- Default prefs project icon images now come from ENV:sys/def_pref.

- The multicolour 3D look mode no longer requires a font of a least
  nine pixels. Now eight pixels will do (and don't you complain if the
  imagery is taller than the menu font).

- The menu image remapping code should now be much smarter for images
  that use the PlanePick/PlaneOnOff option.

- Removed the "Remove" option from the prefs program.

- The prefs editor could copy too many colours when updating the
  the program settings.

- Added a "precision" slider to the prefs program. With this slider
  you can select how much error the colour allocation routine will
  tolerate when selecting the colours for the multicolour menu.

- Rewrote all the colour management routines to be as careful as
  possible when releasing the allocated pens. It looks as if not
  all system configurations will treat pen #-1 as a no-op.


MagicMenu 2.11 (beta)
=====================

- The preferences editor now opens a custom screen with 32 colours
  if it cannot get that many from the requested public screen.

- When MagicMenu has taken control of the menus, window depth
  arrangement calls are no longer ignored, but delayed until
  the menu closes. Actually, I would have to add a whole lot
  more patches to make operation halfway safe, but for now
  I'm just plastering patches onto routines which are somewhat
  likely to get triggered while the menus are up.


MagicMenu 2.12 (beta)
=====================

- The window depth arrangement patches were not installed correctly,
  causing them to do nothing in most cases.

- In non-blocking mode and when running under Kickstart 2.04 you
  would still get the shadow borders. As the drop shadows do not
  work under V37 this was not really sensible.

- Added Mario's new 4 colour images. Note that you will get these
  only with high resolution screens and fonts >= 11 points. I also
  changed the old 3D look ghosting style.


MagicMenu 2.13 (beta)
=====================

- Added a new option to the prefs program. If "Prefer screen colours"
  is enabled, MagicMenu will make up the menu colours from the screen
  user interface colours rather than using the colours you selected
  from the palette.

- Updated the WindowToFront/WindowToBack patches to delay window
  operations on the screen the MagicMenu menus are active on.

- Added more patches to SetWindowTitles and RefreshWindowFrame.
  I should also patch RefreshGList, RefreshGadget, NewModifyProp,
  ModifyProp, and about seven other routines but I guess I'd
  rather stop here. All these routines can cause deadlocks which
  MagicMenu will back out of safely. This can be a little annoying,
  but you can still change the MagicMenu operating mode for
  normal operation.

- The keyboard control commands now consistenly work when they are
  enabled and go out of the way when the are disabled.

- Changed the settings file format, this time hopefully for the last
  time.

- Added a new option to have menus open slightly delayed, or put
  another way, when you have stopped moving the mouse.

- Added another new option to turn off the frames drawn around the
  active menu item.


MagicMenu 2.14 (beta)
=====================

- Corrected the placement of the Command images in menu items and
  subitems.

- For the "old look" menus the separator bars now render in the
  correct colour.

- The old 3D look menu borders are now just one pixel thick,
  regardless of the display mode used.

- Changed the preferences data exchange interface between the
  prefs editor and the main program. Now the system should no
  longer crash if you try to change the settings of the new
  program with an old prefs editor.

- Drop shadows are now restricted to pop-up menus.

- Some menus will open faster now in non-blocking mode, as they
  will be "promoted" to simple refresh windows if possible.

- Some of the patches MagicMenu installs to protect itself are
  no longer active in non-blocking mode. This will help Workbench
  and other applications which would otherwise get caught in
  their display update work.

- Changed the alignment rules for the checkmark, Amiga key and
  submenu arrow images to match those Intuition uses (or would
  use if it could).

- With "mark submenus" disabled, MagicMenu would cease to render
  submenu indicators in multicolour 3D mode. It now works again
  as it should.


MagicMenu 2.15
==============

- An invalid hotkey specification no longer keeps the main program
  from functioning. It will complain and the feature connected with
  the hotkey will be unavailable, but the program will continue
  to run.

- Changed the default colours for the preferences editor fallback
  screen.

- Added more patches for screen depth arrangement, opening
  and closing.

- Added Mario's new artwork.


MagicMenu 2.16 (internal)
=========================

- The size of the menu bar is now taken from the Screen data
  structure rather than made up from the font height.


MagicMenu 2.17 (internal)
=========================

- The layers.library patches now jump into action only if the
  non-blocking mode and the drop shadows are enabled.


MagicMenu 2.18
==============

- Removed all the layers.library patch code. The drop shadows are
  now rendered using a much more robust technique that does not
  require any black magic at all. As such, it now also works
  under Kickstart 2.04 and is no longer restricted to non-blocking
  mode (yes kids, that's what you always wanted).


MagicMenu 2.19
==============

- The changes in 2.18 introduced bugs into the menu refresh code.
  This is what I had to fix in this version.


MagicMenu 2.20
==============

- I got bitten by SetABPenDrMd() again. Darn. Now MagicMenu can
  cast drop shadows under Kickstart 2.04 as it should.


MagicMenu 2.21
==============

- More fixes to keep WSpeed alive [Frank Mariak].


MagicMenu 2.22
==============

- If launched from Workbench, MagicMenu is now quite a bit smarter
  when trying to find its icon to read the tool types.


MagicMenu 2.23
==============

- MagicMenu now only avoids activating the multicolour mode if the
  menu text would become unreadable due to the colours chosen, or
  if the background and the highlighting colours are the same.

- Implemented hi/truecolour shadows.

- MagicMenu now plants its system patches in such a way that
  allows it to monitor whether any other application tries to
  put its own patches on top of them. In such a case, MagicMenu
  will insure that it stays the owner of the first patch code
  to be invoked. This will hopefully fix all known lockup
  problems.

MagicMenu 2.24
==============

- Implemented Mario's new multicolour 3D frames.


MagicMenu 2.25
==============

- Added the "smarter" system patch code (enabled by default).


MagicMenu 2.26 (11.10.1999)

- MagicMenu no longer starts up and complains if it didn't find a hot key
  specifier.

- Menu lending is now implemented differently, regarding the IntuiMessage->IDCMPWindow
  pointer. MagicMenu now places the Window pointer there the menus lent came from.
  This approach will solve one or two problems but may create others.

- Added new configuration options "Transparency", "Separator bar style",
  "Highlight disabled menu items", "Verify patches" and "Fix patches".


MagicMenu 2.27 (11.10.1999)

- Small detail: with transparency enabled, the highlight image of a tick
  mark did not get drawn properly. Fixed.


MagicMenu 2.28 (12.10.1999)

- Reworked the transparency mode image creation code. The multicolour
  3D mode images now come out as transparent.


MagicMenu 2.29 (15.10.1999)

- Changed the minimum drop shadow size to 2 pixels.

- Transparency is no longer allowed for the traditional pull-down
  menus.

- MagicMenu no longer resets its entire configuration if it finds
  a configuration file that does not contain data for recently added
  configuration items. It now retains the old data and resets the
  new entries to defaults instead.


MagicMenu 2.30 (7.8.2000)

- Bitmaps are now allocated in CyberGraphX V4 friendly form, which
  permits them to be stored in video memory. The result should be
  a noticeable speed increase.


MagicMenu 2.31 (2.3.2001)

- Made the 'SetFunction()' patch safer, following much good advice
  from Harry Sintonen.


MagicMenu 2.32 (17.10.2001)

- Pulldown menus are transparent, again <Mario Cattaneo>. The menustrip
  isn't transparent in this mode to make the menutexts easier to read.
  
- This release of MagicMenu is a FAT binary containing code for the 68k
  *and* PPC processor running WarpUP v4.  The PPC is used to speedup rendering
  when the transparent mode is enabled. If you feel like the PPC support makes
  menu rendering even slower, then you can disable the PPC support by setting 
  the "ENABLEPPC=NO" tooltype. Of course, this version also works without a
  PPC. Responsible for PPC support is Stephan, so please send bugreports
  to <stephan@magicmenu.de> if you experience any problems with it.


MagicMenu 2.33 (16.11.2001)

- fixed PPC support (didn't work well on some systems).
- fixed the "Checkmark leaves garbage" bug reported by Andreas
  Kürzinger. At least I hope so (no answer yet).
- MagicMenuPrefs: fixed compiler specific problem with the
  displayhook of the slidergadget (color precision).


MagicMenu 2.34 (12.01.2002)
- added PPCDIRECT tooltype. When set to YES, the PPC will
  read from and write to the bitmaps.
- implemented Amithlon support (just for fun:).
- instead of having the background transparent, you can now
  have a backdrop image.
- transparency didn't work when blocking mode was enabled and
  cast shadows off (two uninitialized variables) <Sensei>.

@endnode

@node Translations
Very early during the big MagicMenu rework Ole Friis, coordinator of the
Amiga Translators Organization, approached me and offered to help in getting
the program text translated. In the "catalogs" drawer you will find the
result of the collaboration. I am deeply indebted to all the people who spent
their time translating the program text:

Czech:
Translator: Vit Sindlar, xsindl00@fik.dcse.fee.vutbr.cz
Proofreader: -

Danish:
Translator: Flemming Steffensen, fsteff@dannug.dk
Proofreader: Ole Friis, ole_f@post3.tele.dk

Dutch:
Translator: Leon Woestenberg
Proofreader: -

Finnish:
Translator: Marko Honkanen, marko.honkanen@mail.suomi.net
Proofreader: Ville Pispa, brainvpp@compost.fipnet.fi

French:
Translator: Jérôme Chesnot, jchesnot@pratique.fr
Proofreader: Vincent Oneto, voneto@instn.saclay.cea.fr

Greek:
Translator: Pantelis Kopelias, leestar@acropolis.net
Proofreader: Manos Konstantiniadis, konem@acropolis.net

Italian:
Translator: Francesco Mancuso (mcfrank@mediatel.it)
Proofreader: Vincenzo Gervasi (gervasi@di.unipi.it)

Polish:
Translator: Konrad Dubiel, konrad@inet.com.pl
Proofreader: Marcin Orîowski, carlos@inet.com.pl

Spanish:
Translator: Juan Antonio Ramirez, goliath@nether.net
Proofreader: Arturo Roa, aroa@redestb.es

Swedish:
Translator: Thomas Andersson, steiner@kd.qd.se
Proofreader: Magnus Holmgren, cmh@lls.se
@endnode

@node Authors
Martin Korndörfer wrote the original MagicMenu program. He is no longer
involved in the development of the program.

The 3D multicolour menu artwork and design were created by Mario 'padrino' Cattaneo.
It was him who brought MagicMenu back to life after development had come to
a standstill with the 1.29 version.

This documentation, the preferences editor and the development work
following MagicMenu 2.3 and upto 2.31 were done by Olaf `Olsen' Barthel.

Currently MagicMenu is maintained by Jens `Damato' Langner and Stephan 
Rupprecht.
@endnode

@node Registration
The original MagicMenu used to be freeware, you would use it and were not
expected to do something in return for using it. This eventually changed
with MagicMenu 2.13. We decided that as a MagicMenu user you should be
encouraged to make a contribution. There are no usage restrictions,
unnerving reminders in this program that force you to register with us,
nor is there a special program version available you would receive upon
registering. If you decide to make a contribution you will encourage us
to continue development and to make enhancements to the program.

It's up to you to decide what you want to contribute and whom you
want to send it to:

   Martin Korndörfer created the original MagicMenu and developed all
   versions up to and including V2.3:

      Martin Korndörfer
      Pommernstraße 15
      D-86916 Kaufering, Germany

   Mario 'padrino' Cattaneo is responsible for the artwork used in the program
   since V2.0:

      Mario Cattaneo
      Paul-Marien-Straße 6
      66111 Saarbrücken, Germany

   Olaf Barthel picked up development with V2.4, he is responsible for all
   the changes, enhancements, bug fixes and new bugs in V2.4-V2.31.

      Olaf Barthel
      Brabeckstraße 35
      30559 Hannover, Germany
      
   In October 2001 Olaf gave the sources of MagicMenu away as he wants to
   spend more time on individual projects. Now a new crew took over 
   development of MagicMenu. The sad individuals continueing the development
   are:)
   
      Jens `Damato' Langner <damato@magicmenu.de> and
      Stephan Rupprecht <stephan@magicmenu.de>

Any contribution makes sense, large or small.
@endnode

@node Support
You can find the most current version of MagicMenu either on Aminet or
on the official home page, as maintained by Mario 'padrino' Cattaneo:

   http://www.magicmenu.de

For feature requests or bug reports please contact either 

   <damato@magicmenu.de> or
   <stephan@magicmenu.de>

@endnode
