eacelari@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward A Celarier) (07/18/90)
What I want to do: User double clicks a stack icon; stack opens, creates a card, shows it to the user, and places the text cursor automatically in a certain field How I though to do it: Use stack script, with handlers like on openCard... on openStack..., etc. In particular: on openStack ... (make the new card) click at the loc of cd fld id 4 end openStack What happens: If I move into the stack from another stack (e.g. home), it works just fine. If I move in from outside Hypercard, the text cursor momentarily flickers in the field, then goes away, as the disk light blinks on and off a few times, and we are left high and dry with a hand, index finger extended (though it might as well be the next one over). I cannot find any documentation which states clearly and authoritatively what happens when hypercard is launched. It is clear that its primary order of business is to show a card to the user, so he has something to look at while other things are going on. I thought I might subvert the getHomeInfo message in the stack script, but apparently that message (who sends it?) doesn't go that far in the hierarchy. Somehow an on Idle handler seems inelegant and inappropriate (the user will do more than fill in a single field!). Could someone please enlighten me? Also: Why is there no definitive documentation on hypercard function, hypertext syntax, and so on? Even Goodman, for all its weight, is sparse! Thanks in advance E. Celarier
bc@Apple.COM (bill coderre) (07/19/90)
Edward Celarier is annoyed |I cannot find any documentation which states clearly and authoritatively |what happens when hypercard is launched. It is clear that its primary |order of business is to show a card to the user, so he has something |to look at while other things are going on. I thought I might subvert |the getHomeInfo message in the stack script, but apparently that message |(who sends it?) doesn't go that far in the hierarchy. Somehow an |on Idle handler seems inelegant and inappropriate (the user will do more |than fill in a single field!). |Also: Why is there no definitive documentation on hypercard function, |hypertext syntax, and so on? Even Goodman, for all its weight, is |sparse! The problem is that when Hypercard is launched, the order of messages is somewhat backward of what some people would expect: openStack, openBackground, openCard, startup Since startup usually involves a covert sortie to the home stack to read fields and set things, any text field that you might have selected will get unselected. You might consider trapping startup yourself, but that will disable the home card's setup routines. So perhaps the best action to take is to do something like: on startup global hackfoo if hackfoo is empty then put "flan" into hackfoo send startup -- do your startup actions here else -- let the message go to the home stack pass startup end if end startup It's been a while since I did something like this, so please excuse any typos.
gannholm@apple.com (Martin Gannholm) (07/19/90)
In article <43115@apple.Apple.COM> bc@Apple.COM (bill coderre) writes: > The problem is that when Hypercard is launched, the order of messages > is somewhat backward of what some people would expect: > > openStack, openBackground, openCard, startup > > Since startup usually involves a covert sortie to the home stack to > read fields and set things, any text field that you might have > selected will get unselected. Due to problems like the one above, we changed the message order in HyperCard 2.0 to be "right", i.e. startUp, openStack, openBackground, openCard. We also changed a few other message sequences, but I can't remember offhand which ones. On the note of losing a selection, however, you can save and restore the selection by doing something like this: put the selectedChunk into saveSelection --funky stuff here select saveSelection Martin Gannholm Apple Computer Exclaimer! I typed this myself; my employer had nothing to do with it...
jk3t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan King) (07/20/90)
gannholm@apple.com (Martin Gannholm) writes: > Due to problems like the one above, we changed the message order in > HyperCard 2.0 to be "right", i.e. startUp, openStack, openBackground, > openCard. We also changed a few other message sequences, but I can't > remember offhand which ones. I hate to be a whiner, but if it isn't going to be obvious from the documentation for HC 2.0, can somebody out there tell us what other message sequences are going to change? (I know that the startup sequence change will probably break one stack I wrote). Since some of these weren't too well documented before, it would be good to know "once and for all" what the sequences were before and will be when the magic moment arrives. > Martin Gannholm > Apple Computer jking
jkc@Apple.COM (John Kevin Calhoun) (07/20/90)
Here are the changes to message ordering in HyperCard 2.0.
- HyperCard startup
1.2.5: openStack openBackground openCard startup
2.0: startup openStack openBackground openCard
- Resume
1.2.5: openStack openBackground openCard resume
2.0: resume openStack openBackground openCard
- New stack
1.2.5: closeCard closeBackground closeStack
openStack openBackground openCard
newStack
2.0: closeCard closeBackground closeStack
newStack newBackground newCard
openStack openBackground openCard
- New stack in a new window
1.2.5: not available
2.0: suspendStack
newStack newBackground newCard
openStack openBackground openCard
- New background
1.2.5: closeCard closeBackground
openBackground openCard
newBackground newCard
2.0: closeCard closeBackground
newBackground newCard
openBackground openCard
- New card
1.2.5: closeCard openCard newCard
2.0: closeCard newCard openCard
- Delete stack
1.2.5: deleteStack closeCard closeBackground closeStack
2.0: closeCard closeBackground closeStack deleteStack
- Delete background
1.2.5: deleteBackground deleteCard closeCard closeBackground
2.0: closeCard closeBackground deleteCard deleteBackground
- Delete card
1.2.5: deleteCard closeCard
2.0: closeCard [closeBackground]
deleteCard [deleteBackground]
[openBackground] openCard
- Cut card
1.2.5: no message
2.0: closeCard [closeBackground]
deleteCard [deleteBackground]
[openBackground] openCard
- Paste card
1.2.5: openCard
2.0: [newBackground] newCard [openBackground] openCard
Kevin Calhoun
Software Engineer
Apple Computersampson@cod.NOSC.MIL (Charles H. Sampson) (07/31/90)
In article <1277@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eacelari@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward A Celarier) writes: >I cannot find any documentation which states clearly and authoritatively >what happens when hypercard is launched. > > [stuff deleted] > >Also: Why is there no definitive documentation on hypercard function, >hypertext syntax, and so on? > I cannot find any documentation that states clearly and authoritatively anything about Hypercard. Please don't bring up the Addison-Wesley book. It's good only by comparison with everything else, but its gaping holes must be numbered in the hundreds. This opinion is borne out by just a casual reading of this newsgroup, when it becomes obvious that the standard development/debugging technique in HC is "try something and see if it works." If there were good documentation there would be a lot fewer questions sub- mitted here. I don't think that the mediocrity of the documentation is the fault of the documentors. I suspect that Hypercard has been misnamed, that it should be called Hyperkludge. I looks to me like a bunch of basically good ideas that have been cobbled together without regard to any underlying structure. The poor documentors have come along after the fact and been given the thank- less task of trying to make some sense of the mess. Charlie Sampson