A List Pascal Adaptation Kit
Sebastiano Pilla, Pascal Programmer

A List Pascal Adaptation Kit

January 1999
Sebastiano Pilla

This is the documentation for the Pascal Adaptation Kit of The A List, a freely available List Manager replacement written by Kyle Hammond.

From the original A List ReadMe:

The A List is a list manager library for the Mac OS. It was designed to overcome the limitations of Apple's List Manager. The main improvements include...

Number of cells in a list is limited only by available memory.
Application callback routines do all drawing and data input/output; no LDEFs.
Drag-and-drop of multiple items.
Cut/copy/paste of multiple items.
Dynamic scrolling.
Faster performance than Apple's List Manager, especially on large lists.
Support for the Appearance Manager and MacOS 8.5.
Heirarchical rows for an outline view list.

...and more!

The A List homepage has the full documentation and the latest updates for The A List.

Download the entire A List Pascal Kit - includes libraries and sample code, projects and applications.

Licensing The A List

The A List is currently distributed as "almost-free"-ware. The cost of including it in your programs is:

Nothing! All I ask is a fully registered, working copy of the finished product (except in-house applications).
For all uses, you must include the following line in the credits of your program (the about box and/or manual):
The A List © 1997-1998 Kyle Hammond

Of course, any other donations will always be gladly accepted.

The above conditions also apply to the Pascal adaptation kit.

Contents of the Adaptation Kit

AList 68K Libraries: Static libraries for 68K development using THINK Pascal
AList 68K THINK C Projects: THINK C project files used to build the above libraries (you'll need the original C sources to rebuild the libraries)
AList Demo (CW Pascal): AList interface files, Pascal code and MetroWerks CodeWarrior 10 projects (for both 68K & PowerPC targets)
AList Demo (THINK Pascal): AList interface files, Pascal code and THINK Pascal 4.5d4 project

How to use the A List from THINK Pascal

Add the following interface files to your THINK Pascal project:
LongCoords.p       
TheAList.p      
If you're targeting any 68000 family processor, add the following libraries to your THINK Pascal project:
AList 1.1.Lib1
AList 1.1.Lib2 
or, if you're targeting the 68020 or newer processors add the following libraries to your THINK Pascal project: 
AList 1.1.Lib1 020 
AList 1.1.Lib2 020

How to use the A List from CodeWarrior Pascal

Add the following interface files to your CW Pascal project:
LongCoords.p
TheAList.p
Create a new group named "A List" into your CW Pascal project, and add the following files to it:
ALBirthDeath.c
ALCellData.c
ALDrawing.c
ALEditing.c
ALHeirarchical.c
ALKeyboard.c
ALMouse.c
ALScrolling.c
ALSelecting.c
ALSelectors.c
ALUserPane.c
ALUtilities.c
LongControls.c
LongCoords.c 
Create a new prefix file for the C compiler and add the following line:
#define ALIST_USE_PASCAL_CALLING 1     
Alternatively, you can compile the C sources for the A List into a static library to be imported into other CW projects; I haven't built the A List as a CW library because I was worried about possible incompatibilities of library formats between the various CW versions.
      

Notes

I'm open to input from users of this Pascal adaptation kit: I'm particularly interested about interface issues and compatibility with newer CodeWarrior Pascal compilers. In this version I have used the {CONST}VAR idiom as in Apple's Universal Interfaces: should I switch to the MetroWerks-only "const" qualifier? Should I keep maintaining two interface files, one for THINK Pascal and another for CW Pascal, or should I merge the two files into one?

Any comments, thoughts, and bug reports about the Pascal adaptation kit should be sent to Sebastiano Pilla.

Correspondence about the original C A List implementation should be sent to Kyle Hammond.