New User Doc Whine & What?

[Mike Arnold]

Ken,

Excellent!  Thank you for taking that much time.

Message hierarchy : Yea, I got it, in fact I have a printed version 
of the message path stuck to the wall right beside my head :-)  Heck, 
in a previous life, I could even code a little smalltalk.  Something 
about the card vs stack doesn't come quite as intuitive at this time 
... especially cross-stack messages ... but I am older now, neurons 
not firing like they used to fire.

Scripting Conferences:  very nice.  Will download them all. (some of 
the videos in the Getting Started documentation will download, but 
then the tool doesn't recognize it and therefore will not play it)

Checkbox button:  I took all of those steps, except I started in the 
dictionary, since that seems to be the only 'reference'.  But I was 
concentrating on the 'container' and 'button' idea not so much 
checkbox. (especially since the dictionary was less than helpful with 
check)  Hilite just wasn't a word I was looking for ... so, the 
checkmark being 'on' isn't what the button contains, just a property 
of the checkmark.  (As I discovered the checkmark can hold a value 
too ... wonder if that's defined behavior?)

This kind of thing is all about learning the words.

>3) The Glossary would seem to be a good place for getting a list of
>properties of objects and perhaps adding something simple to the root
>glossary entries for the different object types would help a lot. For
>example if "button" in the Glossary had a list of properties with a
>short one-line description of each property, and clicking the prop
>would link to the proper Dictionary page, that would be a "low hanging
>fruit" benefit to the user.

It does seems this would be the simplest next step (i.e. just adding 
more info to the existing tool)
Though since I was convinced that the button was a container that, 
for a checkbox, would contain it's check status, I probably would 
have missed hilite.

Properties & messages should be in the dictionary listed under their 
related objects.

Variable watch window:
>This happens when a variable has been used, but has not been defined to
>hold any value.

Yep, got it, but I am single stepping through the script, setting the 
variables and the variable values do not update to contain the new 
values.

Ok, restarting RR seems to have cleared the problem.  There are a 
number of interface problems like this, where things just aren't 
right.  Often, the menu doesn't change right and needs toggling from 
the run->edit->run pointers when debugging.  Sometimes (too often) 
the run pointer doesn't run :-) .... but usually doing the toggle, or 
even clicking in another application and coming back to RR will clear 
it up.

Overall, I think there is a lot of potential in RR ... well, that is 
an understatement a great deal of potential, but to unlock it, some 
reference doc needs to be written.  As a software developer myself, I 
know how this sounds ... I mean, will it sell another copy?  Maybe 
not, but it will get another renewal.  (Note that I ordered the book, 
but haven't received it yet, almost a month later)

Note that I've gotten RR to do applescripts, command line tools, and 
sql ... all quite quickly ... all great, its these annoying, not so 
obvious, english-like UI problems that make me crazy.

The BNF, without any explanation even, would go a long way.

Does the list mind/tolerate such beginner questions? (I mean 
extraordinarily nice response so far!)  I do try to read the doc, and 
really really prefer to find it myself ... if I can find where to 
look.

thanks so much,
Mike.