The Aborted Plunge (Metacard to Revolution)

[J. Landman Gay]

Shari wrote:

> First thing I notice is... I must open the stack to create the 
> standalone.  Eeeech.  The last thing I do before turning into a 
> standalone is run a series of resettings then quit.  Revolution requires 
> the stack to be open, which resets all the settings.

Do all your custom setup, save the stack, but don't quit. Then build. 
That should do it. Many of us have a script we run just before building 
that sets everything up.

> 
> The next thing I notice is that I can't get around this, because 
> Revolution doesn't like that I have embedded Ask/Answer stacks already, 
> as well as File Selector and the whole shebang of embedded stacks for a 
> standalone.  They have just always resided in the stack. But it won't 
> let me run any code that uses them.  It doesn't even offer the option.  
> It growls out error after error.  Okay, so I'll take them out and 
> reinstall them on Standalone Build, right?

Remove the ask, answer, and other IDE stacks, but leave any that you've 
custom created for your standalone. Then go to "Standalone settings" in 
the File menu and make sure that the ask, answer, and any other IDE 
libraries or stacks you need are checked. They will be included in your 
standalone when it is built. I no longer embed any IDE stacks in my 
work, Rev can't tell the difference between its own and the ones in your 
stack. Best to just omit them.

I used to resent this too, but now I think it is a better way to do it. 
Whenever bug fixes are made to ask/answer, you know the latest version 
is always included in your stack when you let the SB do it.

Browse through the panes of the standalone settings and make sure all 
the info is correct for each platform you will build. Once saved, you 
will never have to enter any of this info again. Do the standalone 
settings stuff before you do your custom setup stuff, then save the 
stack immediately before building. (If you don't, the SB will ask you to 
save before it continues. Generally you should say yes.)

> 
> But the application stack doesn't stay open on launch.  It's just a 
> Hello window, and launches an embedded stack.  So I'm in the embedded 
> stack, is Rev going to install any standalone needs into it rather than 
> the mainstack?  I dunno.  I don't want to find out by experimenting.

The stack that will be the "engine" is listed in standalone settings. By 
default, it should be the mainstack. But what I'd do in the multi-line 
message box is:

  lock messages
  toplevel myMainStack

Then open standalone settings if necessary, or just build.

> 
> I try finding a comprehensive tutorial on creating standalones in 
> Revolution, nothing.  I tried every search option available except 
> Google.  Nothing.  Far as I can tell, the help docs don't offer up 
> anything, and the search functions miss the wonderful tutorial I know 
> that Jacqueline wrote.

Funny, I don't even remember that. ;) Isn't the info you need in the 
User Guide that ships with the documentation? I'm not able to 
double-check right now, but I thought it was.

> 
> I quit out of the stack to ponder this further.  I get a ton of errors, 
> because I have stacks embedded that it doesn't like.

You'll need to decide whether you will be building in Rev or not. If so, 
ditch the IDE stacks.

> 
> I've been creating standalones for years, this shouldn't be hard!

It isn't hard, it's just not what you are used to. Just set up 
standalone settings, then build. You can't use MC methods though; Rev's 
SB builder is based on different principles.

> I'm not ready to give up, changes mean bumps, so I have an epiphany. 
> Launch it, remove the stacks, and surely it will let me put them back in 
> during the app build...... I can't find anywhere in the stack 
> preferences window to allow me to custom install chosen stacks.

Not preferences; Standalone Settings in the File menu. First pane, under 
"General".

> But this fails.  Revolution did something to the stack on the first 
> launch, so now that stack won't even launch.  It is broken.

Rev doesn't change anything in your stack or your scripts, so I'm not 
sure how that could happen. The SB doesn't touch your stack at all, 
except to add a few custom properties that are harmless. Maybe it's 
those IDE embedded stacks causing trouble? Best to remove the ask/answer 
and file selector stacks in MC before the stack ever even sees Rev. If 
you have two stacks with the same name, the engine can't tell which one 
you are refering to. Some of the errors may be due to this confusion. 
Rev tries hard to avoid the problem, and it is mostly old MC stacks that 
are an issue. Rev users generally don't embed any IDE stacks, and Rev 
doesn't even provide a GUI to do it.

> 
> I go back to an earlier save.  Launch, remove embedded stacks, quit. But 
> this doesn't appease Revolution.  It doesn't like my stack.  It breaks 
> it.   Once I launch it, it will launch the first time, but no matter 
> what changes I make inside of it, once I quit, I cannot relaunch it.  It 
> attempts a launch then quits.


I have a vague recollection that duplicate stack files will cause this 
behavior. Once you remove the embedded IDE stacks in MC, save the stack 
before opening it in Rev. If you just remove them in the Rev IDE, you 
may accidentally remove the IDE stacks rather than the ones embedded in 
your own stack. Also, remember that MC's ask/answer stacks are not the 
same as Rev's, and haven't been updated for a long time. There could 
very well be code confusion when the two version clash.

> 
> The earlier save yet again...... I try to find the script it is 
> triggering (and shouldn't be) thru the nifty Search All Embedded Stacks, 
> but the script isn't found.  The script in question automatically quits 
> if the main stack isn't loaded.  The main stack should absolutely be 
> loaded.  So Revolution changed something, and now the external stack 
> doesn't recognize the main stack.  (There are both embedded stacks and 
> external ones.)

Is your stack password protected? Rev can't always work with those and 
may not be able to find scripts in a protected stack. Remove the 
password, and instead set the standalone builder (in Standalone 
Settings) set the password for you on build. This is another thing that 
is different from MC.

I'd be very surprised if Rev changed anything in your stack, I've worked 
back and forth between MC and Rev for years and have never seen that 
happen. I routinely write in MC and build in Rev. However, I never set 
passwords on stacks I will build as standalones (I let the SB do it for 
me) and I never embed IDE components. Those are about the only two rules 
I can think of.

> 
> Then my mouse breaks. 

I've had days like that. ;)


-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com