Protos

The System Protos

There are ten view classes on which the system protos are based. From those, the Newton designers created more than 150 system protos for you to use. Some of these protos you will use all the time, such as protoStaticText, and some only occasionally, such as protoLabeledBatteryGauge.

You can select the system protos from the NTK tool palette or from the pickable list. Once you select the proto and draw out the template, NTK takes care of adding the slots to the template that need to be set. System protos have some slots that you can override as you wish, and other slots that you should not override.

It is also possible to create views dynamically that are based on system protos. When you do this in code, you will need to refer to the documentation on each system proto (found in the Newton Programmer's Guide) to know which of the proto's slots you must override, which you can override, and which ones you should inherit untouched.

The Newton Programmer's Guide contains a complete list of the currently available system protos. You should also note that some protos require the use of other protos. For instance, a set of radio buttons should all be children of a parent template that protos from protoRadioCluster. Another example is that a newtLayout must be a child of a newtApplication (see Chapter 10, NewtApp, for more information).

Some Useful System Protos
Configuration of Some System Protos

An online version of Programming for the Newton using Macintosh, 2nd ed. ©1996, 1994, Julie McKeehan and Neil Rhodes.

Last modified: 1 DEC 1996