documentation organizational problems

[Jon]

Brian:

Thanks for your comments.  My problem was spending hours trying to write 
a Flip routine, only to come across it by accident.  There was no clue 
that it existed from looking at the Image properties or events.  After 
this accidental encounter, I now feel as if I have to learn every single 
detail before proceeding at all, which is daunting and frustrating.  
Thus my comment that associating the "methods" with the objects would 
have been a good idea.  And if that was not possible architecturally, at 
least document them somewhere.

And then I tried to do some string manipulations (change the string 
<"FRED"> to the string <FRED>, that is, remove the quotes), and simply 
gave up: there is no section on how to manage strings.

I know I'm coming from another programming environment, and I don't 
expect it to be trivial, but when I can't find any information at all, I 
get frustrated.  I can't be the first one...

:)

Jon


Brian Yennie wrote:

> Jon,
>
> Revolution objects generally _are_ manipulated by setting properties 
> and sending or processing messages.
>
> For the most part, you:
>
> 1) Write "handlers" to respond to "messages" -- this is like a Java 
> listener, except that Revolution is always listening.
>      So if you want something to happen in response to an event, 
> consult the "messages" for that object
>
> on mouseUp
>     answer "You clicked me!"
> end mouseUp
>
> 2) Set properties to manipulate physical objects -- there are no 
> accessor methods
>     So if you want to change something ABOUT an object, consult the 
> "properties"
>
> set the icon of button "MyButton" to 4000
> get the icon of button "MyButton"
>
> That is, there is no "setIcon()" method, and there is no 
> "setMouseUpListener()".
>
> Now there are exceptions, and the documentation doesn't necessarily do 
> justice to all of the relationships, but I think you'll find more than 
> you are expecting available via properties and messages.
>
> For example, for images here are just a few:
>
> set the fileName of img "myImage" to "/images/happy.jpg"
> set the height of img "myImage" to 200
> set the angle of img "myImage" to 90
> set the borderWidth of img "myImage" to 4
> set the imageData of img "myImage" to img "otherImage"
>
> on mouseUp
>    if (the fileName of me contains "happy") then answer "I am happy!"
>    else answer "I am sad!"
> end mouseUp
>
> Now there _are_ other top level commands, i.e.
>
> delete img "myImage"
> create image
> select image "myImage"
>
> But you'll find that these are lesser in number, and apply to all 
> sorts of objects- so the learning curve is not all that bad.
>
> Hope that helps a little.
>
> - Brian
>
>
>
>> Jaqueline:
>>
>> What I find under Objects is a list of properties and messages, but 
>> no commands.  Do you see something different?
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Jon
>>
>>
>> J. Landman Gay wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/1/05 2:24 PM, Jon wrote:
>>>
>>>> Unlike programming languages like Delphi, C, or Java, methods are 
>>>> not explicitly associated with objects in Revolution.  This means 
>>>> that it is very difficult to use the Rev documentation to find all 
>>>> of the methods (commands) for images, or for string manipulation.  
>>>> Am I the only one who finds this to be awkward, time consuming, and 
>>>> frustrating?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think what you want (if I understand right) is in the docs 
>>> already. Click the "Objects" icon at the top of the documentation 
>>> window. Under each heading (which represents an object) is a list of 
>>> commands and properties associated with that object.
>>>
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>>
>
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