Passing selectedField Location between Stacks

[Bernard Devlin]

I'm still trying to solve the problem of passing the field reference of the
insertion point to my palette so that I can insert the label of a palette button
into the field. (All the buttons and groups of the palette have "traversal on is
false").  I still don't understand why the selectedChunk below is empty when the
Transcript documentation suggests that it should contain the location of the
insertion point.

> If there is actually some selected text in the field with the insertion point,
> then the label of the button can be inserted after the text (using "after the
> selectedChunk").  However, if I intercept the processing of the handler in the
> button palette, unless there _is_ selected text, the following all return empty:
> 
> the selectedChunk
> the selectedField
> the selectedLine
> the selection.
> 
> If there is selected text, then they all display some value.
> 
> Because they are empty, the button's label cannot be inserted after anything
> (there is no target), and I get the "chunk: no target found" error.
> 
> My understanding is that the selectedChunk should return something even if
> nothing is selected.  Am I wrong?  According to the Transcript Dictionary:
> >>
> If no text is selected but the text insertion point is in a field, the
> startChar is the character after the insertion point, and the endChar is the
> character before the insertion point. In this case, the endChar is one less than
> the startChar.
> <<
> 
> Am i misunderstanding something about the way in which the target works?  Or is
> this a bug?  
> 
In the absence of a clear understanding of why this is not working, I am trying
to work around it. (I'm sure it has something to do with operations between
stacks).

I'm using a mouseLeave handler to save the selectedChunk and stack details into
the palette's custom properties.  However, when i try to address the stack from
these properties e.g. using "open stack" it doesn't work.

Here is the kind of script I am using:
>>
put word 2 of the cpInsLocStack of stack "Map" into aStack
answer aStack
open stack aStack
<<

"answer aStack" presents the stack's name (which is "Target").  If I type 'open
stack "Target" ' in the message box the stack opens; if I paste the above script
into the message box, I get the answer dialog, but the stack doesn't open.

What am I doing wrong here?