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Tearoff
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CapeSoft Tearoff
Documentation

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License & Copyright

This template is copyright © 2015 by CapeSoft Software. None of the included files may be distributed. Your programs which use Tearoff can be distributed without any Tearoff royalties.

Each developer needs his own license to use Tearoff. (Need to buy more licenses?)

This product is provided as-is. Use it entirely at your own risk. Use of this product implies your acceptance of this, along with the recognition of copyright stated above. In no way will CapeSoft Software, their employees or affiliates be liable in any way for any damages or business losses you may incur as a direct or indirect result of using this product.

Introduction

Derek kept moaning about a feature he saw on an Apple Mac 15 years ago. In those days you were able to 'tear off' a menu item and add it to a hot list. This was useful when you had a handful of menu items you often called, but which were scattered and buried all over the place. We couldn't add this feature to existing Windows programs, but at least it's now available in his, and our, past, current and future Clarion applications.

One good thing leads to another, and after using it in-house for a couple of months we've refined the idea a bit, and added a couple of minor features.

The challenge was to make it trivial to implement (it takes about 30 seconds), and easy to use - and we think we succeeded on both counts.

It's a simple feature - but try it in a program you actually use, it really does save a lot of effort...

Features

Support

Your questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. Check our web page ( www.capesoft.com) for new versions. You can also contact us in one of the following ways.

CapeSoft Support
Email
Telephone +27 87 828 0123
(087) 828 0123

Installation

1. Run the supplied installation file.

Adding Tearoff to your Application

Adding a Tearoff to your Application is easy.

1. Open the app and add the Global Extension, ActivateTearOff.
2. On the Global Extension, click on the Import TearOff Procedure button.
3. Open the Frame Procedure.
4. Go to the Extensions. Click on Insert.
5. Select Activate CapeSoft Tearoff from the Class Tearoff. The default options are fine, read the next section for possible options.
6. Close and save the window.

Using Tearoff when your application is running

We hope we've made this just as easy as the previous section.

1. To Add a menu item to the Tearoff simply hold down the Control Key on the keyboard and Left Click the mouse on the required menu item. Note at this point you cannot add 'Std' items - i.e. menu items which make use of 'Std' behavior - for example the Print Setup item. Also you cannot add Menus themselves - only menu items.
2. To Remove a menu item from the Tearoff simply Right-Click on that item in the Tearoff and select Delete.
3. To Use an item in the Tearoff simply Left-Click on the item in the Tearoff.

Options for the Tearoff Template : Frame

General Tab

Translate Tab

Advanced Tab

Options for the Tearoff Template : Toolbox

General Tab

Translate Tab

Advanced Tab

Advanced: View Toolbox Menu item

Tearoff includes support for a View ToolBox menu item. This is typically a Check Menu Item added to your View menu which allows the user to turn the Toolbox on and off. To add this feature to your application you must;

1. Open the Frame Procedure.
2. Go to the Window Editor - to the Menu Editor. Add a new menu item. (Typically in the View menu, View Toolbox). Click on Toggle (on/off) Item. Set the Use Variable to be Tear:View
3. Go to the Extensions for the Frame, to the Activate CapeSoft Tearoff extension, set the 'View' menu item option to be ?Tear:View
4. Close and save the window.

Examples

There is an example in your \Clarion5\3rdParty\Examples\Tearoff\Abc directory and in the \Clarion5\3rdParty\Examples\Tearoff\Legacy directory.

Tips & FAQ

Clarion Versions : Tearoff is available for Clarion 6, 7, 8 and 9 There is no upgrade charge. Download the latest version from www.capesoft.com.

Compile Error : Unknown Identifier ?Panel1 : You'll get this in Clarion 4 when upgrading from an earlier version of Tearoff. Simply re-import the window from the TXA again. See Adding Tearoff to your application.

Ezhelp: If you have Ezhelp loaded in the same application, then you'll want to disable Ezhelp on the Tearoff window. To do this simply go to the Ezhelp extension on the window, and click on the option "disable Ezhelp in this procedure".

Tearoff Toolbox "look" : Remember the Tearoff toolbox procedure is a normal Clarion window, with normal Clarion buttons. So you can set the font, and button style to match the rest of your app. Makeover 2.0 and later also supports a "Toolbox" style.

INI file location : By default the Tearoff settings are stored in an INI file in the Windows directory. This allows users on different machines to have different Tearoff menus. However you can force the INI file into the 'current' directory by prepending its name with .\ This allows you to allow 1 user to access the program from various workstations, yet keep his own Tearoff settings. (See next tip). Alternatively it allows users to share a common Tearoff menu. Normally you would want your TearOff toolbox settings and your TearOff menu settings stored in the same ini file. You need to make sure that the same ini file is used in both the TearOff extension template on the frame as well as in the TearOff controls toolbox window. You can use a variable to contain the ini filename - check the INI Filename is a variable checkbox on both of the TearOff Control templates that appear on the TearOffToolBox and your Frame.

Multi-User : Some users have expressed a desire to share the settings, for multiple users, in the same ini file but with each user still having their own Tearoff settings. This is now supported. Simply make sure you have a variable, in the frame, that contains the current user's login ID. For example, using Secwin, this ID would be got using the ds_CurrentLogin function.

Long Menu Text : In some programs the menu items are generally very long. In this case it's not a bad idea to set the Text Only Button Height option on the Tearoff window extension options to a value which allows 2 lines of text (set it to say 20). Although this makes the toolbar higher, and hence uses up some more screen space, it allows for narrower, and hence more, buttons on the bar.

Disabling TearOff at runtime: The easiest way to disable Tearoff at runtime, is to place a return in the ThisWindow.Init method of the TearOffToolbox window. For example:

If GLO:DisableTearOff = 1 then
  return level:notify
end

Version History

Download latest version here

Version 2.07:  25 June 2021
 Version 2.06:  24 June 2021
 Version 2.05:  25 May 2021
 Version 2.04:  18 Sept 2018 Version 2.03: Released 28 May 2015 Version 2.02: Released 25 February 2015 Version 2.01: Released 31 January 2014 Version 2.00: Released 12 September 2013 Version 1.94: Released 1 May 2013 Version 1.93: Released May 2012 Version 1.92: Released February 2010 Version 1.91: Released November 10 2008 Version 1.90: Released June 12 2007 Version 1.89: Released July 13 2007 Version 1.87: Released 23 March 2007 Version 1.86: Released 29 November 2006 Version 1.85: Released 21 July 2006 Version 1.84: Released 23 June 2006 Version 1.83: Released 19 June 2006 Version 1.82: Released 7 June 2006 Version 1.81: Released 7 January 2005 Version 1.7: Released 25 March 2002 Version 1.6: Released 2 March 2001
Version 1.55: Released 18 May 2000
Version 1.5: Released 20 March 2000
Version 1.1: Released December 24 1999
Version 1.0: Released December 20 1999