mouseenter/mouseleave and pointer tool

[Richard Gaskin]

Jim Lambert wrote:

 >> Klaus wrote:
 >> when the pointer tool is active, "mouseenter" and "mouseleave"
 >> handlers are executed nevertheless!?
 >>
 >> I don't this this is correct behaviour!
 >
 > I agree.
 > When the pointer tool is selected in the IDE one is supposedly in
 > Editing Mode.

This is a philosophical point in LC, created by a change in how tool 
modes are presented.

Throughout all of xTalk history, and the history of the LC engine prior 
to its acquisition in 2003, tool modes have always been presented as 
options available to scripters like any other part of the language, 
changeable with the "choose" command.

Most xTalk IDEs have lacked the confidence in their language to also 
build their IDE in their own language, so this was less of an issue for 
HC, OMO, Plus, and others.

But MetaCard, SuperCard, Gain Momentum provided runtime editing of the 
sort we have with LiveCode.  While each had subtly different ways of 
guiding the user to appreciate the differences in tool modes, their 
audiences had less confusion, because they presented tool modes as tool 
modes (language elements like any other available for us all to use), 
rather than attempting to present a more consumer-app experience in 
which the pointer tool is somehow not something a scripter could be 
expected to ever want to use.

LC documents the "choose" command, but is designed in a way that 
attempts to be both an xTalk dev environment and a consumer app, 
resulting in an experience that lends many users to think of the pointer 
tool as somehow not available among the "choose" options.



One of the most powerful moments of my scripting life was when I 
launched SuperCard and was invited to explore one of the sample apps 
that came with it, SampleDraw.  It was basically MacDraw, a decent 
drawing app with vector graphics, document handling, and all that, but 
SampleDraw even more capable, with features like polygon morphing, and 
the whole thing written in xTalk.

That moment of seeing an app I'd known well reimplemented more 
powerfully in a scripting language I enjoyed is what compelled me to 
spend so many years enjoying xTalks.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com