> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gregory Lypny [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, November 29, 1999 1:46 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Standalone building and data saving
>
>
> Hi List Members,
>
> I hope you'll humour me in my asking these two naive questions.
>
> The first is on developing MC stacks on the Mac, and
> then creating
> standalones for both Macs and Windows. Is my understanding
> correct that
> to build a standalone for Windows, I must run the Standalone
> Builder on a
> Windows machine?
You could do that, but I think you can also build the Windows standalone on
your Mac as long as you have copied the Windows engine to your Mac. Then you
just need to designate the Windows engine as the one to use in building the
standalone. Mac users, please correct me if I'm wrong.
> The second question is about users' ability to save data
> in fields
> in standalones. Much of my experience in developing
> courseware has been
> with HyperCard, and, if I recall, HyperCard standalones can
> save data in
> fields. But I have been following a recent thread on this
> list where it
> has been suggested that fields in MC standalones cannot save
> data. Is
> this true? When an MC standalone is closed, are the fields
> effectively
> "emptied"?
They are emptied of any data that was not already in them when the
standalone was created.
> I've always viewed the two important functions of
> fields as
> displaying and storing data. If the data-storing capability
> of fields in
> MC standalones does not exist, then my development of courseware will
> have to be substantially rethought because a primary function of
> courseware is that it often has modest database features such as note
> fields, fields for track user progress, etc.
You cannot save data within a MC standalone, but you can save it in any
stack that does not have the engine built in. It's very easy to separate
your data storage stack from your standalone file, because you can make a
standalone that does nothing but launch the non-standalone stack(s) where
you want to be able to save data. Once you have launched a standalone,
Metacard is in memory and can be used to run non-standalone stacks.
I create courseware with MetaCard, and I use my standalone stack to show a
splash screen animation and then launch a menu stack. The menu stack then
launches my various courseware stacks. I can track user progress in both the
menu stack and the individual courseware stacks because they are separate
from the standalone.
Hope this helps!
Marni
--
Marni Centor
Summit Systems
22 Cortlandt St.
New York, NY 10007
(212) 896-3466
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