Can I use Revolution for this?

[Geoff Canyon]

Responses below. If any of it's not clear I can go into more detail.

At 10:48 AM -0700 8/3/02, knowledgeworks wrote:
>Do the above quoted remarks mean that Revolution standalones would be quite
>limited in their ability to dynamically create objects? 

No. You can create (and duplicate) as many objects as you like in a standalone, without limitations. The _only_ limit is the script limits. The documentation covers this, but just to make sure:

You can, in a standalone, duplicate existing objects with scripts of any length. Those scripts can do different things based on standard properties, or on custom properties, of the objects.

Objects that are created or duplicated in a standalone are automatically part of the existing message hierarchy. If you create a button, it will receive a mouseUp if someone clicks on it. You don't need to insert it into the path.

You can, in a standalone, "do" any script up to ten lines in length. This sounds like a severe restriction to many, but in reality it allows you to do almost anything, with a little work.

You can set the script of any object -- an existing object, one you create, or one you duplicate -- to a script of up to ten lines. Again, this is more restrictive when you first get started, but as you gain experience with Transcript, you'll find that much can be done in ten lines.

At 2:49 PM +0200 8/3/02, Björnke von Gierke wrote:
>Partly dynamic:
>You can use pre-generated code-chunks of ANY size and put them into up to 50 stacks and then use them via 'start using stack "stackname" '. This enables you to predefine many different scripts which then can be used as needed.

You could also put the scripts into backgrounds and place or remove them. You could also put all the _other_ objects into a background that exists on many cards, and put the scripts into the card scripts, and then go to whichever card has the script you need to be in place. There are _many_ ways to get the concept of dynamic scripts done, without even bothering with the script limits.

At 8:00 PM -0700 8/2/02, Dan Shafer wrote:
>Wow. This is a bit surprising. I can see the rationale for the new script-size limitation and I suppose the do command sort of would be a back-door way around that limit if it weren't imposed. But it *will* artificially (and I think unnecessarily) limit some kinds of applications which won't be able to be built using the product. I suppose there are justifications for this kind of thing but it always makes me wonder about the priorities of the publishers of the software. It too often seems -- and I'm not making this judgement here about Revolution, so don't go jumping on me! -- that some publishers are more worried about protecting themselves against the extreme unlikelihood that someone would essentially use their product to create a competitor than they are about the ultimate usability of the tool.

This exact thing happened to the SuperCard crew several years ago. A licensee produced a competitive product using SuperCard, and...Allegiant, I think -- had to sue to stop them. Eventually a deal was reached.
-- 

regards,

Geoff Canyon
gcanyon at inspiredlogic.com