Dumb Newbie Questions -- 1 of N

[Kay C Lan]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Peter Alcibiades <
palcibiades-first at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>
> Judy, maybe the issue with custom properties is that they are so simple?
> There is almost nothing there to get your head around.
>

Right!

>
> The way to think of them is just fields.  Except.....


Except?

Scott Rossi wrote:

 You can think of custom properties as global variables that are tied to
> objects, instead of variables that float around in space.
>

With all due respect gentlemen, why is that for something so simple and
already understood, an analogy is used that is only tangentially related.

Judy, you know what properties are, you know how to set the text of a field,
set the textColour, get or set the height of a button/field/card/stack. You
know exactly what a property is, you've been dealing with them since your
very first HC days.

So lets say in your next Rev project you really really wished that a
field/button/card/stack had an extra property, that for you, and as far as
you can tell a whole heap of other people in education could really be
helped out if the Rev Team added this extra property to the current vast
list of properties button/fields/cards/stacks have; and so you put in an
enhancement request.

Well the fact is Rev has already granted your wish! Whatever you can
possible think of - questionText, answerText, theFirstColour,
theSecondColour, defaultLanguage, userLanguage, theWrongImage,
theRightImage, goodSound, badSound, theFemaleFormStack, theMaleFormStack,
windowsMediaPlayerDowloadURL, quickTimeDownloadURL, judyData, jacqueData,
whatever you want you can have. You name it whatever suits you and you use
it just like all the other properties you have ever dealt with.

Properties are like....properties, they are different to fields and they are
different to globals. Just as you can create
variables/button/fields/cards/stacks and give them their own names you can
create properties and give them their own names, at which point they are
referred to as custom properties, but at the end of the day it is still just
a property and you get it and set it just like every other property you've
dealt with.

As some have stated, if you do what you do with the knowledge that you have
then customProperties aren't going to be a big deal for you, but the thing
to remember is that ANYTIME you suddenly wish Cards could remember when they
were first opened, or last visited, the answer is, they can, you can create
such a property plus any other property your heart desires.

So for someone who hasn't used custom properties the only thing to get your
head around is WHEN they could come in handy. If you are fond of using
hidden fields to store data I'd suggest considering, can you create a custom
property called theHiddedFieldText and see if you can achieve the same
results. You can, and once you do you'll have that Ah Ha moment and you wont
turn back.

HTH