The properties property

[Richard Gaskin]

Peter Haworth wrote:
> Thanks for the history behind this Richard.

Hope it was helpful.  I've found that any tool with a long history 
behind it will have some anomalies related to its storied past, and 
while it won't make them go away it helps us keep our sanity in dealing 
with them. :)


> I also tried using the templatexxx objects as a source of all properties
> but it appears that they are basically empty until you set their
> properties.  Or perhaps I was using the wrong syntax.  I tried "put the
> templateStack into tArray" and "put the keys of the templatestack into
> tProps" with no luck (compile/runtime errors), so looks like that is a
> blind alley too.

Try:

   put the properties of the templateStack into tArray

The template objects are very useful in this regard, since they contain 
all of the default property settings.

In circumstances where compactness matters, you can use an array that 
contains only the deltas from the defaults to create a specific object 
by just applying those to the relevant template object, and since the 
defaults are in place you'll have a complete object with the unique 
attributes you're looking for with minimal overhead.


> Since the bug you referred to has been there since 2005, I'm not holding my
> breath that it will ever get any attention!

It would be nice, but apparently only a few of us use "the properties" 
this way, so the task of keeping it up to date with the ever-increasing 
range of object properties added has been a low priority, in part 
because it's only mildly tedious to write a replacement function 
ourselves to do what we need.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys