[comp.sys.mac.hypercard] Slow Stack Revealed

edmoy@opal.berkeley.edu (11/07/87)

I finally spend a few minutes looking at the scripts behind the stack I
previously reported as taking a whole minute to go to the next (or previous)
card.  I did some experimentation on the 931 card stack and discovered the
following:

The script for the next button contained the following:
	on mouseUp
		visual effect wipe down
		if the number of this card is the number of ~
		last card of this bkgnd then ~
		go to second card of this bkgnd
		else go to next card
	end mouseUp
(the ~ represent the continuation character).
Clicking the next button on a certain card (near the middle of the stack)
takes 61 seconds to display the next card.

Executing:
	number of last card of this bkgnd
in the message box took 59 seconds.

Changing the script to:
	on mouseUp
		visual effect wipe down
		go to next card
	end mouseUp
brings the next card up in a second or two.

Clearly, "number of last card of this bkgnd" is something to avoid on speed
grounds.  Maybe someone at Apple would like to look at into optimizing
this feature.

Edward Moy
Academic Computing Services
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720

edmoy@opal.Berkeley.EDU
ucbvax!opal!edmoy