Help with Scripter's Scrapbook 3.1

[FlexibleLearning at aol.com]

Hi Graham:

>I was very pleased to read about SS3.1 - I'd thought of using earlier 
>versions but had never got around to it. It looks like a great product, and 
>for me it will (I trust) solve a very particular problem I have which is
>that I can't easily develop a new version of a stack or stacks by 
>cannibalising an old version because RR won't allow two stacks of the same
>name to coexist in the IDE. Up to now I've got round this by laboriously
>copying scripts of the old stacks to a text editor and keeping that open
>while working on the new ones...

Do you have an older version to export the records from? If so, simply export 
a backup, close the old version, open the new one and import. If you do 
cannot do this, you will need to create new entries and populate them with your 
assortment of tidbits, scripts etc.

>However I am sorry to act so dumb, but in the faint hope this may be useful
>to revolutionaries other than myself, can I use the list to ask Hugh Senior
>or Ken Ray for a very quick 'getting started' tutorial on the Scripter's
>scrapbook? I couldn't find anything like that in the ReadMe or Help texts,
>and my first hurdle was that the only type of document that I seem to be
>allowed to import is a Scripter's Scrapbook file, whereas (of course) I
>want to import scripts, stacks and text files that I've already collected.
>Clearly this is possible, even so easy that it doesn't need explaining
>except to the GUI-challenged, but there it is.

Like any database, the first job is to set up the records. The simplest way 
is as above.

>I also so far I haven't developed a mental model of what the scrapbook
>is - a collection of cross-linked files, a database that points to files, 
files
>converted to special format, files in their original form, etc?

Yes. Basically that's it. A flexible way to store information and access 
useful files.

>I also don't yet understand the context in which I can use it with the
>RunRev IDE - for instance, when I exit the IDE, I'm asked whether I want
>to save the SS stacks - do I? Can I run the SS in the background while 
>developing, including destroying my developing mainstack and reloading
>it etc, moving from browse tool to pointer and back and so forth?

It was requested that the Scrapbook be delivered as a standard, toplevel 
window. This means that it will behave as you describe it. It seems, with 
hindsight, that the original 'modeless' window would be more appropriate to avoid this 
confusion. A revised version will be uploaded today.


Hope this helps.

/H