BELSLEY%BCVMS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU (03/22/88)
For those of you who do not care about this issue, please pardon yet another of my comments about simultaneous scrolling fields. But I feel it is necessary to continue to state that none (I mean absolutely none) of the currently proposed means for effecting simultaneously scrolling windows is an adequate solution to the problem except for the simplest of instances. This includes the control-overlay suggestion, the skip-3-at-a-time-with-lockScreen- true suggestion, and the suggestion in issue 6 of Windoid. These all have their value, and contain various degrees of ingenuity (against which some authors naturally have their egos propped). And they all fall far short of what is needed for, say, handling and editing several long data series at the same time all of which in turn have their corresponding entries paired with each other and with an overall "index" field. In other words, they fail to allow HyperCard to provide the kind of environment that is needed for many kinds of statistical applications. Despite one author's claim to the contrary, I have indeed researched HyperCard on this issue and am convinced that existing HyperCard facilities are unable to provide a solution. A proper solution would be like that found in Paul Velleman's application "DataDesk". In that application, data windows open at the same time share the same scroll control procedure so that the scroll bar of the currently active window acts as the control bar for all open data windows. This allows all windows to scroll together for display of their contents, while allowing each window separately to be selected for the purposes of editing, selecting, copying, pasting, etc. This is what I mean by "simultaneously scrolling windows." I therefore renew my plea to the powers that be (Bill please hear my prayer) that thought be given to a new field characteristic that allows selected subsets of scrolling fields to be linked. I heartily recommend examining DataDesk is this regard if you haven't seen it already. david a. belsley boston college belsley@bcvax3.bitnet