opening a stack without changing current stack order?

[J. Landman Gay]

On 1/10/2015 12:20 PM, Dr. Hawkins wrote:
> I need the formattedHeight and similar properties which only work on
> currently open cards.  The processing, however, should be in the background
> and invisible to the user.
>
> I used to use
>
> push card
> open invisible card this of stack that
> pop card
>
> But now that I've gone to palettes instead of groups for controls, the
> recently closed palette pops up instead of the initial card/
>
> What is the best way to get that card accessible without changing my stack
> order?
>
>

Is the stack in RAM? You can get any property of anything if the stack 
is in memory and you provide a full reference:

    get the formattedheight of fld x of cd y of stack z

It doesn't even have to be the current card of that stack. If the stack 
is not in RAM you don't need to specifically open it, you can do the 
same thing by refering to the stack by its file path:

   get the formattedheight of fld x of cd y of stack 
"volume/folder/stack.livecode"

When you refer to a stack that way, it is placed in RAM but is not 
officially "opened" per se, there are no messages sent to it, and it is 
not in the message hierarchy.

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