Is there a tutorial for Property Inspector, Standalone window and message box menubar?

[Stgoldberg at aol.com]

Back in the first days of HyperCard, for those who remember it in the late 
'80s, the very first manual contained very little about scripting, but contained 
a very useful walkthrough of HyperCard's other features.   This was followed 
by the excellent books by Danny Goodman and Dan Shafer describing the 
scripting in great detail. (I'm especially delighted to get a note from Dan Shafer in 
response to my message as his book was so influential back then).   I think I 
would not have gotten involved with Revolution, though, without having that 
previous experience with HyperCard, since the program seems to presume 
significant prior knowledge on the part of the user.   Dan Goodman's new book should 
help, but there is more that is needed, apart from scripting. The most obvious 
thing is the Property Inspector for which there does not appear to be any 
tutorial.   I found out quite by chance that by holding the mouse over some of the 
categories in the property inspector one gets the Revolution command which 
indirectly gives a clue as to what the item in the Property Inspector does.   How 
the Property Inspector works should be basic knowledge provided with the 
Revolution program.   Also, since receiving the help of one reader of this forum, 
I found out that it is indeed possible for a standalone program to save data 
through checking the right category in the Standalone window, something I did 
not find in the documentation.   Revolution is a remarkable program, but it is 
going to steer away potential new users if it does not include the basic 
documentation.   The "About" and "How To" sections of the User Guide are very 
helpful, but they are not organized in a way that enables easy access to the 
information, or learning it for the first time; there is no Index to the manual.   
(By the way, I am the editor and president   of a medical book publishing 
company, MedMaster Inc, www.medmaster.net, and am used to seeing book submissions 
all the time.   It is vital that a book provide the reader not just with 
isolated details but with a broad overall understanding of the concepts).   I hope 
to use Revolution as a substitute for the now discontinued mTropolis in 
programming our CDs.   It is a terrific program with great power, but simply needs 
more basic documentation.
Steve Goldberg
President, MedMaster publishing co.
www.medmaster.net