SCRIPTS IN GROUPS

[Charles Hartman]

In my very patchy experience, what's surprising and confusing --  
whether you used HyperCard or not, though in different ways -- is the  
overlap / non-overlap between "groups" and "backgrounds". Obviously  
they have a lot in common (since a Rev background _is_ a group,  
though one with a distinguishing property). But something you think  
of as a "background" you expect to receive stray messages; when you  
put some controls together to treat them as a "group" you have quite  
a different set of expectations.

Is there anything fundamental in the architecture -- either code or  
philosophy -- of Rev that makes this overlap essential? Or is it mere  
historical accident of their common outgrowth from the (single!) HC  
"background"? Are there reasons the two _couldn't_ be separated? I'm  
not clear what would be lost.

Charles


On Aug 6, 2005, at 3:26 PM, Dan Shafer wrote:

> James....
>
> When I say it's a surprising feature, I have my Revolutionary hat  
> on. As a HC user, of course, I'd expect this, but in HC: (a) a  
> background occupies an entire card; and (b) you can only have one.  
> So when I learned that one could have more than one bg group in  
> Rev, I *assumed* that they would respond to messages in a different  
> way as well.
>
> I don't, as I said, think this is a bug, but if you don't come from  
> HC, it could be a stumbling block.
>
>
> On Aug 6, 2005, at 10:13 AM, James Spencer wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On Aug 6, 2005, at 11:56 AM, Dan Shafer wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> While I'm not sure this can be characterized as a bug, I'd call  
>>> it a surprising feature. And it has a particularly intriguing  
>>> problem if you have multiple background groups. In that case, the  
>>> background groups live in layers, of course, each of which is the  
>>> effective size of the card. So the topmost background intercepts  
>>> all mouseUps (and presumably other such messages) that fall  
>>> outside the bounds of any object or other group on the card. I  
>>> can see where that might cause a programming dilemma or at least  
>>> confusion.
>>>
>>> I don't think it's necessary to avoid putting scripts in groups,  
>>> but it is necessary to be careful what messages you write scripts  
>>> for in the groups so that you can handle the flow of messages  
>>> properly.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I'm actually surprised to hear you, as a HyperCard user, say this,  
>> i.e. that is a surprising feature.  I may be wrong about this but  
>> I had thought the background property was implemented in large  
>> part for compatability with HyperCard.  And while it's been years  
>> since I've used HC, as I recall in HC, a click outside any other  
>> objects would go through to the background which covered the  
>> entire card.  Personally, the feature that  I found surprising  
>> when I started using rev was that you could have more than one  
>> background.
>>
>> Spence
>>
>> James P. Spencer
>> Rochester, MN
>>
>> jspencer78 at charter.net
>>
>> "Badges??  We don't need no stinkin badges!"
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>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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