LETTERS

FLOATING BUGS
I liked Issue 15's article on floating windows and have successfully implemented your
routines. I did, however, find one bug. Your routine HideReferencedWindow can leave
the process's window list pointing to a deallocated window when there are no floating
windows.
-- Chester Murphy

Thanks for pointing this out. It's fixed -- along with some other small bugs -- in the
code on this issue's CD. (It's been fixed since Issue 16's CD.)
-- Dean Yu

PRAGMATIC SOLUTION
Floating windows is one of my favorite subjects. I tried to compile your
WindowExtension example, using THINK C 6.0. My first problem was with
USES68KINLINES. THINK C checks the #pragma parameter with the function
declaration. So I tried to use A1 and D0 as parameters, but then I needed a few more
#pragmas for the activate handlers. I still don't have a working version.

Also, could you explain why we need CallUniversalProc? I'm quite happy with the C
syntax.

Thank you very much for doing such a good job on the article.

-- Robert Puyol

The use of USES68KINLINES has changed since Issue 15 went to press. Currently,
#pragma parameters aren't  used any more, so you shouldn't have any problems using
the header file with THINK C. Additionally, the new version of the floating windows
code uses the universal header files that are discussed in the "Making the Leap to
PowerPC" article in Issue 16 and are on this issue's CD. We recommend using
CallUniversalProc in your source code (or one of its specific variants, like
CallActivateHandlerProc in the floating windows code) to allow for greater portability
of your source code between platforms. For a detailed explanation of using
CallUniversalProc  and UniversalProcPtrs, check out the aforementioned article in
Issue 16.
-- Dean Yu

DESKTOP FILES REDUX
I liked Issue 15's Puzzle Page, about the damaged desktop files. I've seen this bug often,
since I fix a lot of damaged hard disks.  You probably know this, but if the desktop files
get hosed in a certain way, rebuilding them in the Finder won't fix them. You have to
delete them (or rename them) to get the Finder to build new files from scratch.
AutoDoubler comes with a little utility called Desktop Reset just for deleting the
desktop files.
-- David Shayer

I didn't know this when I wrote that Puzzle Page, but you're right. When the desktop
file gets damaged to the point where the File Manager can't open it, the Finder can't
rebuild the file, so you have to throw it away or rename it. Thanks for the feedback.
-- Konstantin Othmer

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