Any way to persistently lock messages?

[David Epstein]

Many thanks to Craig and Jacqueline for their suggestions.  I had never used the “errorMode,” but could not get it to work.  The “suspend errors” button (or menu command) seems to do what I want, but with a bad bug (see below).  The “suspend messages” button (or menu command) does work as Jacques suggested.  

I created a test stack that has one button with this script:

on mouseEnter
   put random(1000)
   get missingHandler()
end mouseEnter

A.  With neither “suspend messages” nor “suspend errors” in effect, when the mouse enters the button, the message box gets a number and an error is triggered by line 2’s missing handler.

B.  If I “set the errormode to quiet”, the same thing happens (so this did not suppress the error on line 2).

C.  If I choose “Suspend messages”, no number is put and no error is triggered.  As expected!

D.  If (with “Suspend messages” turned off) I choose “Suspend errors,” the number is put but no error is triggered.  As expected!

But:  I can execute case D once, but the stack then becomes unresponsive.  If the mouse reenters the button, no number is put; and other controls will not execute their scripts either.  It is as if having suspended errors successfully once, all messages get suspended, and nothing works until I restart.

So I think “Suspend messages” will do what I want, but I would like to understand why “Suspend errors” (which would be preferable for my purposes, since it allows innocent messages to proceed) doesn’t seem to operate correctly.

David Epstein




> Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2025 12:01:04 -0600
> From: "J. Landman Gay" <jacque at hyperactivesw.com>
> To: How to use LiveCode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>
> Subject: Re: Any way to persistently lock messages?
> Message-ID:
> 	<19aacba0700.2812.5e131b4e58299f54a9f0b9c05d4f07f9 at hyperactivesw.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> Does the "lock messages" icon in the toolbar at the top do it?
> 
> --
> Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
> On November 21, 2025 11:08:26 AM David Epstein via use-livecode 
> <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
>> I am wondering if any other users have faced or solved this problem:
>> 
>> I have over the years constantly revised some basic tools I use to create 
>> and edit stacks where I store substantive information of various kinds 
>> (tables, images, text).  The scripts of those substantive stacks send 
>> messages to be handled by my “tool” stack; but as a result of later 
>> revisions of my tool stack some of those handlers have disappeared.  So if 
>> I simply want to inspect old substantive stacks I am stymied by error messages.
>> 
>> One solution would be an ability to lock messages persistently, but I do 
>> not see a way to do this.  I can imagine a workaround that would lock 
>> messages, then copy the content but not the scripts of the objects in my 
>> substantive stack to some new stack  where I could study them.
>> 
>> But I wonder if someone has already done this or has a different idea.
>> 
>> Many thanks.
>> 
>> David Epstein