print screens example handler (Rev 1.1.1)

[Alex Rice]

On Tuesday, March 4, 2003, at 08:15  AM, Alex Rice wrote:

> on nicePrintScreens
>   set the cursor to watch
>   --
>   -- create a new stack for performing print screens layout
>   --
>   lock messages
>   new invisible stack "PrintScreens"
>   -- don't keep stack in memory after we are done with it
>   set the destroyStack of stack "PrintScreens" to true
>   -- don't use printer fonts- yet.
>   set the formatForPrinting of stack "PrintScreens" to false
^
this is the default of formatForPrinting  anyways

>   -- dont bother buffering since we are not actually displaying this 
> stack on screen
>   set the alwaysBuffer of stack "PrintScreens" to false
>   -- make it our size
>   set the width of stack "PrintScreens" to the width of this stack
>   set the height of stack "PrintScreens" to the height of this stack
>   -- copy selected cards
>   repeat with tCardNumber = 1 to the number of cards in this stack
>     -- here you could test the card to see if it's supposed to be 
> printed
>     put "true" into tActive
>     if tActive then
>       copy card tCardNumber of this stack to stack "PrintScreens"
>     end if
>   end repeat
>   -- get rid of the first card in the stack
>   -- it is blank and was put there when the stack was created.
>   delete card 1 of stack "PrintScreens"
>   -- yes, use printer fonts
>   set the formatForPrinting of stack "PrintScreens" to true

^
Here I am setting formatForPrinting to true while the stack is still in 
memory. The docs say this is BAD and sure enough- I was seeing all 
kinds of bizarre behavior. Varying from a hung app to a runtime crash 
with "integer division by zero".  This works a whole lot better:

set the destroyStack of stack "PrintScreens" to true
save stack "PrintScreens" as tFilename
close stack "PrintScreens" -- will purge
set the formatForPrinting of stack tFilename to true
go stack tFilename


Alex Rice, Software Developer
Architectural Research Consultants, Inc.
alrice at ARCplanning.com
alrice at swcp.com