-- card: 11236 from stack: in.0 -- bmap block id: 0 -- flags: 0000 -- background id: 3797 -- name: -- part contents for background part 1 ----- text ----- Date: Tue, 15 Dec 87 00:49 EST From: (DAVID A. BELSLEY) Here are a few questions to keep the creative sorts chewing: 1. How can one get two field simultaneously to scroll in HyperCard. I don't mean setting one field's scroll to that of another, because that can only work in a staggered fashion. I mean for the two fields really to scroll together. 2. How can one determine when a field has closed after it has been opened? The closeField message is only sent if the text in the field has been changed. This, however, makes it difficult to verify the field for a specific entry type. Suppose, for example, the field should be a number. If a letter slips in, this can be caught on the initial closeField, but, if the user ignores your warning and makes no correction, you have no way of knowing this since no closeField will be sent if the text isn't changed. I have found ways around this, but they are all extremely awkward. 3. Is it possible to dim a button? Perhaps an XCMD could be written to do this, but this would require some rather intimate knowledge of the way hypercard keeps its control information. Is such information available, both for buttons and for fields? 4. Related to the above, how does one address the controls and the fields from an XCMD or XFCN? Where is the window edit record stored for each field, for example? How does one get access to the appropriate handles while the card is open? etc.? I have been able to do a lot with HC in attempting to set up an environment for guided computing in statistics, but a number of limitations such as those indicated above are making its use problematic. I have by no means given up hope. I am sure I have a great deal more to learn, and I am also sure that HC will undergo substantial growth. But unless answers to such questions become real, HC will not serve many subtle needs. -- part contents for background part 45 ----- text ----- A few HC questions -- part contents for background part 41 ----- text ----- What links to A few HC questions?