Standalones for the Mac OS-challenged

2. Being a good Mac OS Citizen

The minimum your application must do to cooperate with the OS and other programs in the Mac is:

2.1 Allow itself to be launched (for example by a double-click from the Finder).

2.2 Quit when asked, both by the application's user via a button or menu, and by the OS, for example when the user shuts the machine down.

2.3 When relaunched after a premature termination (for example a crash caused by another application), start cleanly again from the beginning without crashing and without leaving unwanted files in the machine.

2.4 Preserve the integrity of the Clipboard unless some explicit user action in your SA (i.e. Cut or Copy) alters it.

If your SA handles documents, then it must also:

2.5 Allow itself to be launched via an "Open" action applied to any of its documents (any document with a Creator Code that binds it to your application), for example by a double-click on a document icon in the Finder.

2.6 Handle a second or subsequent "Open" of a document after the application is launched.

2.7 For Mac OS 8 and 9 users, react to an attempt to print a document from the Finder, either by actual printing (best) or by gracefully refusing to print.

It should be said immediately that SuperCard limits your ability to fulfil 2.4. This is discussed in section 6.3 below.

1. BNDLs, icons and binding

2. What an SA needs to do to be a good MacOS citizen

3. What you can get away with without doing any special scripting

4. Limitations of the 'non-interventionist' approach

5. Features of the classic app which need scripting help

6. A sketch map of some workarounds