Sure: There's interaction between the App and the OS, lots of it. They
maintain a constant chatter of messages back and forth.
But the *nature* of that interaction is that Word calls into the OS library
and requests the dialog boxes it wants. Word feeds a bunch of parameters
out to the OS, but it's the OS that draws the dialog box, and it's the OS
that does the printing.
Both Mac OS and Windows contain extensive libraries of "Classes" (if you
like "Building blocks") that enable them to draw pretty much anything you
like on the screen.
These days, if you want to be considered a good Mac or Windows citizen, you
code your application to call the operating system. Loading your user's
system up with megabytes of your own code to do things the OS could do for
you is not only extremely expensive (all that development and testing
time...) but it's the height of bad manners
It also makes for a nasty
maintenance rod for your back: every time Apple changes anything in the OS,
your application would fall in a heap! So they just don't do it!
Microsoft Office products behave exactly the same as Apple products in this
respect: they send calls to the operating system. By flipping a couple of
parameters in those calls, a given dialog box can look dramatically
different between one application and the next. It can have different tabs,
or even different sheets. But it's the same call, to the same OS routine,
that's generating it.
Generally, the Apple applications these days are using a later version of
these controls, so they can take advantage of some enhanced features that
were not available when MS Office was designed. I'm sure those will appear
in the next version of the Microsoft products.
But there's no way the Microsoft programmers are going to sit down and
re-invent a wheel that Apple already has rolling along the road.
Now, please people, can we just lay this topic to rest? Microsoft Office
does not handle its own printing or its own file I/O on the Mac (OR the
PC!!) any more than it handles its own user authentication or its own
network transmission. These are tasks we buy an operating system to do
Cheers
You don't have to believe me -- I don't care one way or the other what you
believe
However, Microsoft Office does not contain any "Printing" code, or any "File
Handling" code. It's all done by simple calls to OS X.
Just wondering if this is completely true. I'm only making this comment
because print-dialog boxes do differ among applications. For example,
in Word and Excel, you get a small page preview, as well as the option
to print just selections. In Canvas, you get the options to print
selections and/or certain layers. In Powerpoint, there are various
slide printing options available. Wouldn't these have to be handled by
some sort of interaction between the application and the OS, so the
extra features could be added?
Thanks in advance.
[snip]
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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
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John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
