Stack file size

[Signe Marie Sanne]

Lars Brehmer skrev:
> This is probably only of interest if you are a Rev user without much  
> coding expertise like myself and are working with stacks and  
> standalones that contain thousands of actual Rev cards, instead of  
> using a data base. >

Hello Lars
A suggestion from another language program developer: I would suggest that 
you get rid of the thousands of cards. When I started with HyperCard I used 
lots of cards. Now I just make one editing card for each model of 
exercise,then there is no need to have extra cards containing the data. All 
the relevant data is then put into a custom property either of the card 
itself or of the stack, or elsewhere. So no need for a database.

Each time I need to change anything I go to the same editing card, fetches 
all the relevant data from the custom property and put them into the various 
fields, do my changes and put it back into the custom property.

One simple example to make it clearer: For a gapfilling exercise you need 
only the card on which the student does the exercise + an editing card for 
the same exercise. Let's say you have 10 exercises with verbs. The relevant 
data may be like this:
1. w3 r2 The boy fetches water.
2. w2 r8 Mary wants to study English.
etc.

I usually put all the relevant data into the same phrase. The second word 
(w3) indicates the word to be filled in, the third word (r2) is a reference 
to a rule etc. In this way I use just one field on the editing card (for 
instance called "datafelt".

On the exercise card the word no. 3 will be replaced with ... or --- or ____ 
or similar in the first phrase, word no. 2 in the second phrase. The same 
words are the key which the program matches with the student's answer.

The set of sentences is then saved into a custom property:

  put "datafelt" into f
  put "gr" into kust -- for the grammar exercises
put "Ver" after kust -- to indicate a verb exercise
put "3a" after kust  -- to indicate which number and that there may be a 3b, 
3c --as well
set the kust of this cd to the htmlText of fld f

Then each time you need to make changes, you go to the editing cd,fetch the 
data and put it into fld "kustfelt":

  ask "Which exercise?" with "grVer" --You have to add the number
   if it is empty or the result is "cancel" then exit mouseUp
   put it into kust
   set the htmlText of fld "kustfelt" to the kust of this cd

htmlText is used in order to maintain the various diacritics across platforms.

If you need further help, don't hesitate to mail me offlist.

Signe Marie

-- 
Signe Marie Sanne

1. amanuensis/Senior lecturer
Romansk institutt                 	Tlf. 	+47 55 58 21 27
Øisteins gt. 1				Epost: 	signe.sanne at roman.uib.no
Universitetet i Bergen

	http://www.hf.uib.no/hfolk/mlab/Info/sms.html