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Another thing that would help here:
In HyperCard, some of the more rudimentary actions that a button could have (go to card, play a sound, etc.) could be accessed through the button's properties, without needing to write any scripts. This is likely one of the reasons why they could get away with a tutorial manual that did not really include much on scripting. Rev lacks such a feature.
How about a Property Inspector pane called "Action" (or something similar) being added for buttons, and giving some of these same capabilities? That would make life a bit easier in terms of writing such a tutorial, and would also serve to make Rev a bit more "kid-friendly" -- it should'nt be hard to do either, selections from that pane could set properties of the button which would be examined by a mouseUp handler in a backscript or in the engine. A mouseUp handler in the script itself could override, or even supplement by passing the message after performing its own actions.
For example, a backscript might contain something like this (untested):
on mouseUp
if "playSound" is among the customKeys of the target then
play the playSound of the target
end if if "goCard" is among the customKeys of the target then
put the goCard of the target into cn
if cn is "next" then go to next card
else if cn is "previous" then go to previous card
else if cn is "first" then go to first card
else if cn is "last" then go to last card
else if char 1 of cn is "." then go to card (char 2 to -1 of cn)
end ifif "goStack" is among the customKeys of the target then go to stack the goStack of the target
end mouseUp
I've been tempted for some time now to try creating such a beast myself, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
On Mar 24, 2005, at 7:02 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Back in the first days of HyperCard, for those who remember it in the late
'80s, the very first manual contained very little about scripting, but contained
a very useful walkthrough of HyperCard's other features. This was followed
by the excellent books by Danny Goodman and Dan Shafer describing the
scripting in great detail. (I'm especially delighted to get a note from Dan Shafer in
response to my message as his book was so influential back then). I think I
would not have gotten involved with Revolution, though, without having that
previous experience with HyperCard, since the program seems to presume
significant prior knowledge on the part of the user. Dan Goodman's new book should
help, but there is more that is needed, apart from scripting. The most obvious
thing is the Property Inspector for which there does not appear to be any
tutorial. I found out quite by chance that by holding the mouse over some of the
categories in the property inspector one gets the Revolution command which
indirectly gives a clue as to what the item in the Property Inspector does. How
the Property Inspector works should be basic knowledge provided with the
Revolution program. Also, since receiving the help of one reader of this forum,
I found out that it is indeed possible for a standalone program to save data
through checking the right category in the Standalone window, something I did
not find in the documentation. Revolution is a remarkable program, but it is
going to steer away potential new users if it does not include the basic
documentation. The "About" and "How To" sections of the User Guide are very
helpful, but they are not organized in a way that enables easy access to the
information, or learning it for the first time; there is no Index to the manual.
(By the way, I am the editor and president of a medical book publishing
company, MedMaster Inc, www.medmaster.net, and am used to seeing book submissions
all the time. It is vital that a book provide the reader not just with
isolated details but with a broad overall understanding of the concepts). I hope
to use Revolution as a substitute for the now discontinued mTropolis in
programming our CDs. It is a terrific program with great power, but simply needs
more basic documentation.
Steve Goldberg
President, MedMaster publishing co.
www.medmaster.net
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- ----------------------------------------------------------- Frank D. Engel, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
$ ln -s /usr/share/kjvbible /usr/manual
$ true | cat /usr/manual | grep "John 3:16"
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
$
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