Abnormal behavior?

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, xbury.cs at clearstream.com wrote:

>>> I have a field script with a keydown event
>>> which responds to keys typed in a field and
>>> which checks for pretyping using a handler.
>>> 
>>> I also have a frontscript (XOS) with a generic
>>> pretype handler of the same name.
>>> 
>>> What is abnormal is that when the keydown event
>>> calls the pretyping handler, the frontscript is
>>> the one that takes priority and not the handler
>>> in the same script!
>>> 
>>> This busts completely the local overide principle
>>> in scripts... And the hierarchy of events...

>> If I understand you correctly, I would think the behavior is correct.  If
>> a frontscript wasn't triggered first, why would you bother having
>> frontscripts at all?
 
> The question is rather how do you overide a frontscript?...
> 
> In general and in most situations a local item overides a global
> counterpart.
> 
> If i have a card script and an equal stack (or bg) script, the card script
> is the
> first to run... 
> 
> Maybe I got the frontscript wrong... And that script shouldn't be there
> but still im surprised of the behavior...

Without knowing exactly what you're doing, I wonder if perhaps you need to
look at the message hierarchy differently.  Frontscripts were designed to
intercept messages before they are passed to any object.  I don't believe
there is any way to override a frontscript, but you can remove the script
from the message hierarchy which should effectively accomplish the same
thing, and then re-insert the script as needed.

Alternatively, you could have the bulk of your scripts stored in a
backscript or library, and then have scripts in specific controls which will
override the backscripts by default.  This might be closer to what you
describe.

You might want to take a look at this diagram to better understand the
message path:
http://www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/images/mess_path2.gif

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Development & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com