when can I set a substack's properties?

[Phil Davis]

Hi Charles,

You can do a LOT with a substack without officially opening it.

- I'm assuming you're talking about a substack of a stack that's already 
open. If so, the substack is already in memory.

- You can get/set its properties.

- You can run its handlers by invoking them directly:
   send "doSomething" to stack "sub1".

- If you 'start using' the substack, you can use its image object IDs as 
icon IDs of your mainstack buttons. (It'll sometimes work even if you 
don't 'start using' it, but it'll *definitely* work if you do.)


You can do all these same things to any unopened stack. But in the case 
of an unopened stack that's not already in memory, the first thing that 
happens when you "touch" it in any way is that is gets loaded into 
memory. This means you can preload stacks into memory before opening 
them by just referencing something about them. Then later when you "go 
to" them, the navigation doesn't take as long. This can be helpful if 
you're going to a large stack.


HTH.

Phil Davis



Charles Hartman wrote:
> I'm not clear about when a substack "exists." I want to set some  custom 
> properties in a substack from a script in the main stack, and  it would 
> be a lot handier if I could do it before issuing the "open"  command for 
> the substack. It seems to work OK during my development  cycle in the 
> IDE. But will it work (in a stack being run under the  Dreamcard Player) 
> the first time out of the box? Or do I have to  issue an "open" command 
> before Rev will know the substack exists, and  where to put stuff in it?
> 
> The substack is part of the stack file, so is it true that Rev knows  
> all about it, and properties (custom or built-in) can be set before  
> it's opened? The IDE's own evidence is kind of mixed: the Application  
> Browser knows the substack while it's closed, but the Inspector doesn't.
> 
> Charles Hartman