Build-time v Run-time

[Graham Samuel]

Another naive questions, but this hasn't happened to me before, or at least I haven't recognised it properly.

I'm looking at some code written by an associate. As normal (to me) it's a mainstack and a lot of substacks. I want to tinker with the code, so I open the mainstack in the LC IDE, and immediately the program starts to run, even though the Edit tool is active in the toolbar rather than the Browse tool - it starts up and does stuff, like the IDE does. I don't want that, I want the code to remain entirely passive until I tell it to run!

How does a stack get into 'instant run mode' like that, and what can I do to stop it? Is there some way of creeping up on it so that no handler is executed?

Actually I noticed that Thierry's Kickstarter monitoring program does the same thing, but I still don't understand it, even tho it only has a few lines of script. What apparently happens is that the preOpenCard handler is executed when the file is opened, but why?

Dumb again

Graham