Scott Morrow wrote:
I think a common variation is to have a standalone application (which most "long-timers" try to put minimal code into), a "program main stack" (perhaps with substacks) which can also be a stack file that the standalone loads first to establish the interface (and doesn't need to be saved), and data files which can also be substacks. Then just the data substacks need to be involved with the save process. Keeping the data separate from the everything else has been consistent advice on this list.
Yep, that's how I work. I've come to love using stack files for data storage. They give me all the flexibility I've enjoyed with my own custom formats but I don't need to worry about parsing the file, since the built-in routines for getting and setting properties make it dirt simple to stuff any data I need discretely.
Extra bonus points: simply setting the password of the data file makes the data unreadable to other apps. Sometimes I do this with hard-wired passwords just for modest on-disk protection. If I need user-managed security I use either fwPack/fwUnpack (<http://www.revjournal.com/tutorials/handy-handlers-005.html>) for very modest security, or Rev's encryption externals for industrial-strength security.
And a nice extra: in those rare cases when a save is interrupted, the engine has automatically made a backup of the last good save (the "~*" copy), which has made a couple of my end-users very happy to learn about. :)
-- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Media Corporation ___________________________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
