CHAPTER 7
Routing and Communications
Routing Outgoing Items 7-11
Figure 7-7 An Action picker can include two kinds of actions
Note that the first action listed in an Action picker has the name of the target
item appended to it (for example, “Print Note”). Other actions listed in the
same picker do not have the name of the target item appended.
A Newton device has certain transports built in; the exact configuration
depends on the capabilities of the device. For example, an Apple
MessagePad 120 comes with transports for printing, faxing, e-mailing,
and beaming. Users can install additional transports at any time.
Building an Action Picker 7The system builds every Action picker dynamically, at the time a user taps an
Action button. This allows all applications to take advantage of new transports
that might be installed in the Newton device at any time. Because the system
is responsible for building an Action picker, an application need not know
anything about the available transports. Likewise, transports can be removed
from the system without any effects on applications. The Newton system
matches the transports to the data being routed, creating the Action picker
on demand.
Instead of naming an individual transport, any action listed in an Action
picker may name a group of related transports. For example, there might be
several different e-mail transports listed as a group under the single action
“Mail.” After picking the Mail action, a user would have an opportunity to
select one of the available e-mail transports, as described in “Transport
Picker” on page 7-18.
A
ctions that
in
volve transports
O
ther actions—
h
andled by the
a
pplication
Separator line