Choices, Choices, Choices

[Thomas McGrath III]

Hello to all,

I am starting a new project and have to decide the best way to store a 
lot of info for my button states and actions.
right now I need to decide which is the best way to proceed???

I have hundreds of buttons. In groups of about 130 each.
Each button has three states: Available to hit, Not-available to hit 
and mouseDown once hit.
I need to set the available/not-available state depending on the other 
buttons. MouseDown is just for feedback that an available button is 
pushed.
I need to store the available buttons in groups of two, three or four.
I need to store a name for which group the button is now available.
I need to store a phrase that hitting the button will get.
I need to store which main group the button is in.

My Decision is between arrays (which I am new to understanding), Custom 
Properties (which seem complicated for this) and Simple storage 
containers from delimited text files (which I am used to). Any Help 
deciding??????

Sample data in group1 line 1:
House,rainbow,car,food,Let's go out for fast food,Home Things,Going 
Out,Driving,Fast Food, 128 Icon Group

button1, button2 ,button3, button4, thephrase, name1, name2, name3, 
name4, groupname1
button1, button2 ,button3, button4, thephrase, name1, name2, name3, 
name4, groupname1
etc.
etc.

and in group2 line1:

button1, button2 ,button3, button4, thephrase, name1, name2, name3, 
name4, groupname2
etc.

I use the groupname to find out which set of button to make available 
as a whole.

What I do with this is :get all button1's and make them highlighted.
	Also, on mouseWithin I display the Name1's of the available buttons 
one at a time when over that button.
Then after hitting one of them I get all button twos that have the 
first hit button in the button1 place and make available the button2's.
	Also, on mouseWithin I display the Name2 of the available buttons
Then after hitting one of them I get all button threes that have the 
same second button and the same first button and make all of the 
available third button's available for hitting.
	Also, on mouseWithin I display the Name3 (which is similar to the 
thephrase)
If there is a button4 then I do the same if not then:
Then when the third button is hit the phrase is displayed. And all 
buttons go back to the first state.
Or if there is no button3 then:
Thephrase is displayed and all buttons go back to the first state.

I am using this list every time a button is hit and also based upon 
other environment message etc. So it needs to be fast.


Macintosh PowerBook G-4 OSX 10.3.1, OS 9.2.2, 1.25 GHz, 512MB RAM, Rev 
2.1.2


Advanced Media Group
Thomas J McGrath III	• 2003 •	3mcgrath at adelphia.net
220 Drake Road, Bethel Park, PA 15102