Problem with setting htmlText of field to empty in LiveCode 6.6 RC2

[J. Landman Gay]

On 3/19/14, 1:45 PM, Peter Haworth wrote:
> I'm not sure why this is such a problem.  Html isn't regular text and
> shouldn't be treated as such, that's why htmltext is a separate property
> from text.

It isn't a problem really, and it doesn't require immediate attention. I 
just think it's wrong, purely for the sake of consistency in the 
language. There is a difference between "no measureable content" and 
"empty". For example, a variable containing zero is not empty. Likewise, 
htmltext containing only tags should not be empty. (I notice the rtfText 
behaves the same way and returns a skeletal paragraph structure.) Now 
technically, paired "p" tags (in LC fields) indicate a line break, which 
also doesn't equate to empty. The engine apparently strips that off 
before setting the content of a field if that is the only thing in the 
htmltext; it has to, otherwise the field would contain a single carriage 
return -- which isn't empty.

Basically, empty should always mean entirely empty, not "empty most of 
the time except for these cases where you have to check something else 
to see if it's empty."

It really is a quibble, and easy to work around, though I don't really 
think changing the behavior would break anything since apparently the 
current way hasn't been noticed before. My only concern would be that it 
creates an unnecessary exception to the existing syntax.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com