Fw: Re[7]: groups and background

[Ken Ray]

> At 11:07 AM -0800 12/28/02, Ken Ray wrote:
> >One more thing... if MC/Rev had called this property "sharedContents"
rather
> >than "backgroundBehavior" I think it could have cleared up a lot of the
> >confusion...
>
> But that would imply that groups with backgroundBehavior turned off aren't
> shared between cards, which isn't the case.

Good point.

Interestingly enough, in MC, only groups that have the backgroundBehavior
property can be "placed" through the interface (in fact, the menu item is
"Backgrounds...") - after placement, however, you can turn off the
backgroundBehavior property and the contents are still shared between the
cards.

This is probably why Rev's menu item is "Place Group". Note though that once
a group is created, its backgroundBehavior property is FALSE. As soon as you
place it on another card via "Place Group", however, Rev automatically sets
the backgroundBehavior property of the group to TRUE.

The combination of these two methods are probably where Richard and I (and
perhaps others) assumed that you *needed to have* the backgroundBehavior
property turned on in order to share content.

It does seem odd, though, that buttons can share their hilite through a
property, fields can share their text through a property, but groups share
their contents through being "placed" - no property to set here, it seems.

Of course the docs state that the backgroundBehavior property has nothing to
do with content sharing, but is specifically to put such a group in the
message-passing hierarchy "behind" cards, and to have it automatically
placed on new cards as they're created.

But I think the confusion is over the content-sharing aspects of a group,
and not the message hierarchy issues.

Hmm...

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/