Visual effect problems in iOS

[Ken Ray]

On Feb 20, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Graham Samuel wrote:

> Having finally reviewed that page (12) I notice that the description doesn't apply to my case. I have not locked the screen, and am just doing a card-to-card transition. As I said, my very simple example works (set up a "flip left" visual effect, then go to a different card), but it doesn't work in my app. I am quite prepared to believe it's my fault but I really can't see what I'm doing wrong. Incidentally, locking and unlocking the screen as described in the document doesn't help.

Is it possible you're using an unsupported adjective? I discovered that if I used "slowly" instead of "slow", the visual effect wouldn't work. The only supported adjectives are "very slow", "slow", "normal", "fast", and "very fast". 

OT: Grammar    (you can stop reading here if you don't care about this)

<soapbox>
As someone who's kind of picky about the use of language, the fact that the descriptor is described in the iOS Development Release Notes as an *adjective* and not an *adverb* drives me crazy… you see visual effects originated in HyperCard, then SuperCard, and then ultimately in MetaCard/Revolution/LiveCode. At the beginning, the syntax allowed for both proper adverbs (like "slowly") as well as improper ones (like "slow"). But at some point along the way, Revolution/LiveCode dropped official support (in the documentation, that is) for proper adverbs. So where you used to be able to use:

    unlock screen with visual effect dissolve slowly

you are now urged to use:

    unlock screen with visual effect dissolve slow

The current desktop versions of LC still support proper adverbs, but the mobile versions don't. Personally I see that as a bad direction. Use of "slowly" is  the correct form, since "dissolve", "flip", etc. are all *verbs*, thus requiring an *adverb* to modify them. Adjectives are meant to modify *nouns*, which in this case is the "visual effect". So if the speeds were adjectives, or if for some reason the noun being modified is "visual effect dissolve" and not "visual effect", the syntax would end up being:

    unlock screen with slow visual effect dissolve

However since the current syntax is to apply the modifier *after* the description of the effect, it means that "dissolve" is a verb, and as such should use an adverb. And while most of the rest of the world seems OK with saying things like:

    "The car moves fast"  (instead of "The car moves quickly")
    "Your clock is running slow"  (instead of "Your clock is running slowly")
    "Eat a healthy breakfast" (instead of "Eat a healthful breakfast")

I feel that LiveCode should at least continue to support adverbs with visual effects on *all* platforms.

Thank you for listening to this rant…

:D
</soapbox>

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/