OpenControl

[hh]

Grande Dame Jacque,

> Jacque wrote
> ...The system is already too large and the messaging too complex to tinker with at this late stage ...

Just let me add the following for all who reads this later on and are now a bit frustrated because we have learned a lot in this discussion. And just now you bring in criteria never mentioned before with this problem (rating indirectly all contributions until now as "garbage"):

> Jacque wrote
> ... And I was just curious if there was a quick, self-contained trick that would allow sharing the group ...

This sounds as if there was no. There was one:
The handler preopenCard suggested by Mark. The only thing to talk about is whether to put this in a frontscript or just put it in the group's script only.

> Jacque wrote:
> ... Due to this particular setup, inserting (even more) scripts into front or back, or placing a group on every card whether it needs it or not, isn't practical ...

You know this and I insist on writing this down for 'beginners':
The script of a shared backGround button hasn't to be placed in the backscript. It's by default inserted past card and stack. Every single background group gets each message sent to a card (even mouseDown) if it's passed by card and stack.
And placing a group on every card is *once* a repeat loop of 3 lines and one line of 'checking' in the first line of the group's preopenCard handler to hide or show it or "pass preopenCard".
In TOTAL: Typing effort < 2 minutes. Difference in size for use on one card and use on 1000 cards in total < 2 KByte.

We know you are stressed and the following is not only from this reason not meant as an affront against you. It's simply a defence for other solutions presented here, especially Mark's (mine is a simple variant of) and Mat's (we learned from that 'focus' is *the* first message), that ARE more or less self-contained solutions or easily convertible to such.

Take this advice from an old man:
Please be cautious with your direct or indirect "rating": Your assessments have highest weight in the community. Don't make them careless.

I really love your contributions on other webpages, here and in the forum. And your scripts are a source of pure gold to digg from. Thank you VERY much for that.

Respectfully and kind regards,
Hermann