Can standalones give users the same Text formatting menu as in IDE?

[Richard Gaskin]

Tom Bodine wrote:
 > Actually, I have Curry's FieldTrip tool, but it does not utilize
 > the LC 7 unicode field. I believe the embedded field it uses is
 > from LC 5.5. Since the tool is password protected, I can't just
 > update the field.

LiveCode has one field object.  It's not possible to use the field 
object of an older version while running a newer version.  Whatever 
field properties and messages are available in a given engine version 
are available to any field run in that version.


 > FieldTrip adds some other complications to my project. So I was
 > hoping to keep it simple with a formatting menu script and keyboard
 > shortcuts.

Curry does great work, but for something this common it should be 
relatively easy to implement - if not, LiveCode has failed in its 
mission and we'd need some language extensions to make it easier.

A few versions back (5.5.4 IIRC) the engine team added a means of 
toggling text styles, which make implementing things like a Style menu 
much simpler.  In the past we have to examine the textStyle of the 
selection and hope it was "mixed" in order to know who to update our 
menu and apply or remove the style selected by the user.  But today 
textStyles can be set in a Boolean fashion individually:

   set the textStyle["bold"] of the selectedChunk to \
     (not the textStyle["bold"] of the selectedChunk

Additionally, in older versions changing the textFont or textSize reset 
both, but now all text attributes are managed separately.

What challenges have you run into making your text menus?  I'll bet we 
can help put that together with relative ease, or perhaps identify 
usability issues in the language that could use refinement.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com