On a somewhat related note, I filed this bug yesterday: Property Inspector doesn't retain new control name when clicking properties checkboxes http://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=18740
Peter Bogdanoff On Nov 1, 2016, at 11:12 AM, Richard Gaskin <ambassa...@fourthworld.com> wrote: > dunbarx wrote: > > > > Richard wroteL > >> In v9 try: > >> > >> 1. Create a new field > >. 2. In the Message Box, run: > >> > >> put the short name of last field > >> > >> I get the name instead, e.g. "field id 1009". > >> > >> IIRC the short name of a field is empty until you set it. When a > >> field is unnamed, "the short name" returns empty and "the name" > >> would return the form shown above, yes? > >> > >> Otherwise, we have no way to know when a field has not yet been > >> named. > > > > If I make a new control, and immediately ask for its name, or short > > name, I have always gotten the default name in the inspector, which > > is something like: > > > > field "field" > > or > > button "button". > > Exactly. The form has changed. > > This is at least progress, since the older IDE habit of forcing redudant-form > names was always confusing and needed to go, leading us to less-than-graceful > coding like: > > put field "field 1" into field 1 > > This was made super-awkward since ordinal references are a very specific > thing in xTalks, and the force-applied name used an ordinal form that will > bear no relationship to its actual ordinal reference the moment its layer > changes. > > So good riddance on that - kudos to the team for finally taking care of that. > > But here we get to a condundrum: > > > Never empty. > > You're absolutely right. When in doubt I check the Winkler-Kamins-DeVoto > reference, and indeed they verify that all name queries will return a value, > even when the property itself is empty. When using "the short name" on an > unnamed object, WKD says it should return the ID form, as LC currently does. > > I can appreciate the hand-holding of ensuring that name queries always return > a meaningful value, it does raise a question: is it possible to know if the > name property of an object is empty? > > For example, if I wrote a script similar to the older IDE script that > insisted on setting the name property to a value that resembles what we get > with unnamed objects, how could we know the object's name us truly empty? > > In a pre-coffee moment I had mistakenly believe that the short name might > allow this, but I'm not disappointed to find that LC now follows the > tradition of the mother tongue. > > I suppose if I ever find myself needing to know that I could do this: > > function HasNoName pObj > put the properties of pObj into tA > return (tA["name"] is empty) > end HasNoName > > -- > Richard Gaskin > Fourth World Systems > Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web > ____________________________________________________________________ > ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode