What About Newbies

[Thomas McGrath III]

Tom,

Nice name!!!! My name is Tom as well.

When I started out in xTalk the single most helpful thing I found was 
to download other peoples stacks and read through them and see how they 
did it. It helps to have an idea of 'what' you want to accomplish so 
that when you see how someone else did it then it will make more sense. 
Even today I still do this. I now learn how to do things in a more 
efficient manner from seeing how others do it.

Start out with a simple premise: "I want to have a series of cards and 
progress through them in a logical way."
Then check out how other people do just that. You will soon discover 
the go command. So look that up in the dictionary and you will find:

Go
Navigates to another card or stack.

go [invisible] [to] card [of stack] [as mode|in [a] new window|in 
window]
go [invisible] [to] {first | prev[ious]| next | last | any} [marked] 
[card]
go [invisible] [to] {recent | start | finish | home} card
go [invisible] [to] {forward | forth | back[ward]} [number]} [card[s]]

In it's most basic form (ignore the [] ) it is "go card "card name".
or - go first card
or - go previous card
or - go forward
or - go forward 2 cards

Then look at the examples in the dictionary that are provided:

go to card "Hemingway" -- in the defaultStack
go to stack "Controls" as palette
go to next marked card
go back 7 cards
go invisible stack "Preferences"
go stack URL "http://www.example.org/data/mystack.rev" in a new window

Then build a blank stack and create a couple of  cards and try putting 
some of those in a button in a mouseUp handler. Or as I do, take 
someone else's stack and change the scripts that are in their buttons 
and see what effect that has on how the stack works. As long as you 
keep a backup copy of the stack then any thing you do will only either 
work and you can say "Ah hah" or if it doesn't work then you can say "I 
won't do that again"  but you can always go back to the backup.

This is the way I prefer to learn. Slowly over time as you piece things 
together you will pick up enough to write your own simple stacks. Then 
you can see how others handle the  if - then statements and switch 
statements and repeat structures. These become your building blocks.

I have not stopped learning since the day I started and I don't 
consider myself a guru at all. I do however finally feel confident that 
I can produce a solution to most problems via research and trial and 
error - that is the beauty of xTalk in the first place.

I hope you adopt a strategy and stick with it and if reading a book is 
how you learn best then get Dan's book and still download as many 
sample stacks and see other examples of how codes work.

HTH

Tom McGrath

> On Jul 9, 2005, at 7:05 PM, Tom McDonald wrote:
>
>> I've been running tutorials and whatever else is available to a
>> newcomer to Revolution but have become frustrated because it is all
>> beyond me The daily material is all about technical stuff between
>> gurus. There is nothing for the newbie. The videos are smoothly
>> presented and the diction is impressive but it's all above me.
>> There's a group of advanced users swapping esoteric fixes.
>>
>> I need a video turorial that simply explains how to create a data
>> base of many text screens that can be called up as needed or on a
>> random basis.
>>
>> How about a basic explanation of an If/Then and a Do While algorithm?
>>
>> Perhaps an explanation of how and where to locate plug-ins and how
>> to use them.
>>
>> Perhaps a kindergarten section in the daily blurbs would assist
>> people like me.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Tom McDonald
>>


Macintosh PowerBook G-4 OSX 10.3.9, OS 9.2.2, 1.25 GHz, 512MB RAM, Rev 
2.6


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Thomas J McGrath III
3mcgrath at adelphia.net