Additional System Services

Using Additional System Services

To add an action to the notify icon and display it, call the

AddAction

method as

in the following example:

myFunc := func() GetRoot():SysBeep();
theAct := GetRoot().notifyIcon:AddAction("Beep", myFunc,

nil);

You can remove an action by calling the

KillAction

method--for example, if

your task in progress completes while the

protoStatusTemplate

view is

hidden, you should close the status view and remove the action from the notify
icon's menu. You need to save the result the

AddAction

method returns. Pass this

object to the

KillAction

method to remove the action from the notify icon's list

of actions, as in the following example:

GetRoot().notifyIcon:KillAction(theAct);

Using the DoProgress Function

17

To provide user feedback during a lengthy operation, you can use the

DoProgress

function to display a status view and call the function that implements that operation.
The

DoProgress

function is suitable only for tasks that complete synchronously.

To report the progress of asynchronous work, you must display your own

protoStatusTemplate

view and update it yourself, as described in "Using

protoStatusTemplate Views" beginning on page 17-18.

The

DoProgress

function accepts as its arguments a symbol specifying the kind

of progress indicator to display (a thermometer gauge or a barber pole), an options
frame that allows you to customize the progress-reporting view further, and a
function that actually performs the operation on which you are reporting progress.

You must not allow the user to close the progress slip without cancelling the
progress-reporting operation--if the

DoProgress

method sends status messages

to a nonexistent view, the Newton hangs. You must hide the Close button normally
provided by the

DoProgress

method. You can do this by including a

closebox

slot having the value

nil

, in the options frame that you pass to

DoProgress

as

shown in the following code fragment:

local myOpts := { closebox:nil,

icon: kMyIcon,
statusText: kAppName,
gauge: 10,
titleText:"One moment, please..."}

The function you pass to

DoProgress

must accept as its sole argument the view

that displays

SetStatus

strings to the user. For example, to report status while