Re: mcEncrypt
Also, I'm assuming that there isn't an mcDecrypt (common practice with password systems is that they are one-way process only). If there is a decryption function, what is it called and what are its parameters? Oops, I asked this question some time ago and was told no decryption then - sorry to repeat myself! Still interested in the characters generated by mcEncrypt() though! Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
MC Version Testing
Title: MC Version Testing Hi I don't know if this will be of any help to anyone, but I find it helps me when running stacks upgraded to use features from new versions of MetaCard. In order to avoid problems whilst running a stack I always include a call to a handler to check that the current MetaCard engine is late enough to support necessary features. Typically I call: if MCearlierThan(2.3.1,true) then quit With the following handler to test the current MC version including beta and gamma releases: function MCearlierThan minVersion, showMsg set the itemDelimiter to . put the version into currVers put item 1 of currVers into mcVers put toLower(item 2 to -1 of currVers) into theVers repeat with i = number of chars in theVers down to 1 put offset(char i of theVers, .abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz) into posn if posn 0 then delete char i of theVers end repeat put (mcVers . theVers) + 0 into mcVers put item 1 of minVersion into minMCvers put toLower(item 2 to -1 of minVersion) into theVers repeat with i = number of chars in theVers down to 1 put offset(char i of theVers, .abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz) into posn if posn 0 then delete char i of theVers end repeat put (minMCvers . theVers) + 0 into minMCvers if mcVers minMCvers then if showMsg then answer Oops, this stack needs version MetaCard minVersion return \ or later (you're using version currVers )! with Quit end if return true else return false end if end MCearlierThan The above avoids problems when trying to use recent features not supported in earlier versions of MC. IF you find it useful, then help yourself! Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Controlling QuickTime tracks
I've developed a CBT that uses a number of QuickTime movies that contain a Flash track for animation and a sound track for voice-over. I'm now being asked to add a text track for captions for those users who don't have sound or don't want to use sound (in a shared office for example). QuickTime supports the addition of a text track, so I could have a single movie file containing all three tracks (video - Flash, sound - voice-over, text - captions). Is there any way I can enable/disable QuickTime tracks in a movie under control of my MetaCard stack? QuickTime Player supports this, so it's clearly a feature within QuickTime movies, it's just than I can't see how to get at this control from within MetaCard. Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Controlling QuickTime tracks
Is there any way I can enable/disable QuickTime tracks in a movie under control of my MetaCard stack? QuickTime Player supports this, so it's clearly a feature within QuickTime movies, it's just than I can't see how to get at this control from within MetaCard. Check out the beta of 2.3.2, currently on the MetaCard ftp site ftp://ftp.metacard.com/MetaCard/2.3.2/ The read me lists loads of new QT properties, including the ability to control QTVR, and yes, to turn on and off specific tracks in a movie. Regards, Kevin Thanks Kevin. I've tried it out and it does just what I want! Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
A few short questions
Here are some questions that have occurred to me during my development work using MetaCard. I'm not sure whether I'm simply missing a few tricks (not unheard of!), or whether these are genuine feature holes. Some 'constant' questions: 1) Is it possible to declare global constants or are all constant declarations limited in scope to the script in which they are contained? 2) Is it possible to declare a non-printing (special) character as a constant, e.g. something like "constant CRLF = $013$010" to declare a end of line constant? 3) Is it possible for a constant declaration to include expressions, e.g. something like 'constant padding = tab "|" tab'? Some script debugging questions: 5) Is it possible to insert some special breakpoint or trap command that let's you run scripts at near normal speed (without having the script debugger open), but that will suspend the execution and allow you to look at variable values etc. single step etc. - i.e that will throw you into the script debugger ONLY when you reach a breakpoint? 6) Is it possible to 'watch' a variable, i.e. set up a monitor that only kicks in when a named variable's value changes? Cheers Peter -- ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: A few short questions
On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, Peter Reid wrote: Here are some questions that have occurred to me during my development work using MetaCard. I'm not sure whether I'm simply missing a few tricks (not unheard of!), or whether these are genuine feature holes. Some 'constant' questions: 1) Is it possible to declare global constants or are all constant declarations limited in scope to the script in which they are contained? They're limited to one script. Suggestions about how to do it globally (like a #include in C) are welcome, but the discussion about this on the xtalk mailing list awhile back broke down before any suitable method was proposed (the big problems are establishing *when* the definition is to be done and what to do if the #included script isn't found). 2) Is it possible to declare a non-printing (special) character as a constant, e.g. something like "constant CRLF = $013$010" to declare a end of line constant? No, but "crlf" already is a pre-defined constant ;-) 3) Is it possible for a constant declaration to include expressions, e.g. something like 'constant padding = tab "|" tab'? No, they must be either strings or numbers. Allowing escapes (like C strings) is something we considered but rejected. Some script debugging questions: 5) Is it possible to insert some special breakpoint or trap command that let's you run scripts at near normal speed (without having the script debugger open), but that will suspend the execution and allow you to look at variable values etc. single step etc. - i.e that will throw you into the script debugger ONLY when you reach a breakpoint? No, but this is on the feature-request list. 6) Is it possible to 'watch' a variable, i.e. set up a monitor that only kicks in when a named variable's value changes? Theoretically, yes. But there is no UI that supports this now so you'd have to hack up the debugger scripts, which is not an endeavor to be taken lightly. Regards, Scott Thanks for the answers Scott - now I know (I'm not missing any tricks this time!). Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Reversing Buttons?
I develop my MC stacks using MetaCard 2.3.1 on a Mac and distribute them on both Mac and Windows (with tweaking under Windows as and when necessary). I've noticed that the order of the buttons displayed in an answer dialog box are reversed between the Mac and Win versions! For example, if I do the following: answer "Do you want to continue" with "Yes" or "No" I get Yes followed by No on the Mac with No being the default button. However, I get No followed by Yes under Windows, but with No still being the default button?! Any suggestions as to whether this is a "bug" or a "feature" and how I can make it consistent across both platforms. Thanks. Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Reversing Buttons?
On 2/9/00 12:39 pm, Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I develop my MC stacks using MetaCard 2.3.1 on a Mac and distribute them on both Mac and Windows (with tweaking under Windows as and when necessary). I've noticed that the order of the buttons displayed in an answer dialog box are reversed between the Mac and Win versions! For example, if I do the following: answer "Do you want to continue" with "Yes" or "No" I get Yes followed by No on the Mac with No being the default button. However, I get No followed by Yes under Windows, but with No still being the default button?! Any suggestions as to whether this is a "bug" or a "feature" and how I can make it consistent across both platforms. This is definately a feature - the default order between these two platforms *is* reversed, so you only need to pass the same instructions to the answer command to make it work correctly on all platforms. You could check the platform then reverse the order you call the buttons in, but this would then break the UI guidelines on one or other platform... Thanks for the response Kevin - it just means I can't use screen shots from one source for user guides etc! Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Sluggish QuickTime Response?
On 9/8/00 11:16 am, Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm using player objects to show QuickTime movies in MC 2.3.1 for both Mac and Win. The movies are about 1Mb in size and include voice as well as animated cartoons. The movies last about 30-50 secs. I have QuickTime 4.1 on both Mac and Win. When I play a QT movie on the Mac and click on the pause button on the QT controller, it responds practically immediately. However, when I do the same on the Win machine, there can be a long delay before it responds. This can be as long as the remainder of the movie (up to 30 secs)! Also, on the Mac I can single click on other objects and get an immediate respond. On the Win machine, I have to click twice?! The Win machine I'm using is a current P-III 700 laptop with 128Mb RAM, 18Gb disk running Win 98SE. By comparison, the Mac I'm using is a G3/300, 128Mb RAM, 16Gb disk running MacOS 8.6. So if anything, the Win machine should be at least twice as fast as the Mac (and is for many processor-intensive tasks - comparing the same stacks running on both platforms). This sluggishness under Windows is a real problem as users have to wait an unknown amount of time for a response to the 'pause' and click twice to move off the player object, where they'd naturally want to click once. Any ideas what the problem is and how I can get round it?? This could be a problem with your machine or specifict setup, script, other software running, or suchlike. Of course, it could be a bug somewhere. If you like, you can email me a copy of the stack/movie off-list with an exact recipy for me to try and I can tell you if it happens here. Might help track it down... Regards, Kevin The sluggishness seems to be consistent across 2-3 PCs and seems to get worse after I've run a few movies, so memory/virtual memory problems look favourite! The need to click twice (once to change focus from the QT player and then to send mouseUp to target object) seems pretty consistent under Windows and different to the Mac where a single click is always enough. I'll try to send you a small sample and recipe for you to investigate. Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Sluggish QuickTime Response?
I'm using player objects to show QuickTime movies in MC 2.3.1 for both Mac and Win. The movies are about 1Mb in size and include voice as well as animated cartoons. The movies last about 30-50 secs. I have QuickTime 4.1 on both Mac and Win. When I play a QT movie on the Mac and click on the pause button on the QT controller, it responds practically immediately. However, when I do the same on the Win machine, there can be a long delay before it responds. This can be as long as the remainder of the movie (up to 30 secs)! Also, on the Mac I can single click on other objects and get an immediate respond. On the Win machine, I have to click twice?! The Win machine I'm using is a current P-III 700 laptop with 128Mb RAM, 18Gb disk running Win 98SE. By comparison, the Mac I'm using is a G3/300, 128Mb RAM, 16Gb disk running MacOS 8.6. So if anything, the Win machine should be at least twice as fast as the Mac (and is for many processor-intensive tasks - comparing the same stacks running on both platforms). This sluggishness under Windows is a real problem as users have to wait an unknown amount of time for a response to the 'pause' and click twice to move off the player object, where they'd naturally want to click once. Any ideas what the problem is and how I can get round it?? Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Resend: Truncated Columnised Text?
On 7/8/00 11:45 pm, Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I didn't get any response to this one, so I'm trying again in case it was overlooked! Check out the various table examples on our web site, including the latest "spreadsheet" style object created by Tuviah! Regards, Kevin Thanks Kevin, I'll take a look. Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Purging Open Stacks?
Can anyone suggest a reliable way of opening supporting mainstacks repeatedly without getting this error message? Two useful things to know about destroyStack: before it will work you must close all stacks in a particular file; if you send a message to a stack or have an open socket or other action that is going to cause it to be needed, it won't get removed. You can manually remove stacks by deleting them - be careful how you use this command though because if you save changes to any stack in a file it will remove the deleted stack forever (unless the stack is a mainStack). Thanks Kevin. Can I just check what you mean by the above. The support stacks I'm using are all in their own separate *.mc files and designated as 'mainstacks', and they all have destroy stack window set. How should I close them such that they fully disappear, but can be reopened at any time with either 'modeless path/stack.mc' type command - or any other sensible way of opening them? I don't want to save anything in these support stacks - they are used for printing and displaying on-screen help. They are outside the main stacks I'm developing so they can be shared between them rather than repeat them within each main CBT stack. Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Resend: Truncated Columnised Text?
A script can't use the textheight to determine the width of a string. Even with monspaced fonts, there is no relationship between the width of the character letters and the textsize, and even worse, the textsize will vary from font to font, and from platform to platform. Luckily MetaCard has a "formattedwidth" property that lets the script determine the actual width of a string in pixels. This seems to work: on insertItem theText, theField, theCol put "1," the tabstops of fld theField comma the width of fld theField into theTabStops put (item theCol+1 of theTabStops) - (item theCol of theTabStops) into thePixelWidth set itemdelimiter to tab repeat for each char i in theText put i after temp put temp into item theCol of fld theField select item theCol of fld theField if the formattedwidth of the selectedchunk = thePixelWidth-10 then -- 10 pixels for a margin; adjust delete last char of item theCol of fld theField exit repeat end if end repeat end insertItem This script assumes that the field has no tab stops that extend past its right edge. If it does, you'll have to change the way the last column's width is calculated. You'll also probably want to lock the screen while this runs. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Jacqueline, I'll give it a try. Cheers Peter -- ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Purging Open Stacks?
On 8/8/00 4:01 pm, Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks Kevin. Can I just check what you mean by the above. The support stacks I'm using are all in their own separate *.mc files and designated as 'mainstacks', and they all have destroy stack window set. If they are mainStacks and don't have any open substacks, then just closing (or of course deleting!) them should do the trick. With the 'close' command? If the user closes a stack by clicking into the window box, it leaves the stack in the state that leads to the purge dialog?? How should I close them such that they fully disappear, but can be reopened at any time with either 'modeless path/stack.mc' type command - or any other sensible way of opening them? I don't want to save anything in these support stacks - they are used for printing and displaying on-screen help. They are outside the main stacks I'm developing so they can be shared between them rather than repeat them within each main CBT stack. You should ask yourself if you really need to remove these stacks from memory at all. If you have enough and/or your needs are not that great, its often best to leave stacks in memory after closing so they load faster next time. If I just let them stay in memory and then try opening them with 'modeless', I get the purge message I was having trouble with. How do I open a stack that may be in memory already or may not have been opened yet in a way such that I don't get the 'purge' dialog appearing? Is the trick to close them in some special way, i.e. not by the user simply clicking on the close window box? Cheers Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Purging Open Stacks?
With the 'close' command? If the user closes a stack by clicking into the window box, it leaves the stack in the state that leads to the purge dialog?? It shouldn't, at least if it's a main stack with no substacks and you've set its destroyStack property to true. Don't know how, but it happens! How should I close them such that they fully disappear, but can be reopened at any time with either 'modeless path/stack.mc' type command - or any other sensible way of opening them? I don't want to save anything in these support stacks - they are used for printing and displaying on-screen help. They are outside the main stacks I'm developing so they can be shared between them rather than repeat them within each main CBT stack. You should ask yourself if you really need to remove these stacks from memory at all. If you have enough and/or your needs are not that great, its often best to leave stacks in memory after closing so they load faster next time. If I just let them stay in memory and then try opening them with 'modeless', I get the purge message I was having trouble with. How do I open a stack that may be in memory already or may not have been opened yet in a way such that I don't get the 'purge' dialog appearing? Is the trick to close them in some special way, i.e. not by the user simply clicking on the close window box? There's something else going on here: you should never get that dialog if you just reopen the same stack, regardless of whether it is retained in memory or not. When you *do* get it is when you try to open a stack that has the same name but a different file name. The most likely cause of this is using two different paths to get to the stack (are you changing the directory property at any point?), but setting the fileName property of the stack can also cause it, as can downloading a stack via HTTP and then using "save as" to save it to disk. I have two CBT stacks in folders 'SafetyScreen' (containing cbt1) 'SafetyAdmin' (containing cbt2). At the same level in the file structure, I have an additional folder called 'SafetySupport' which contains support stacks - cbtHelp.mc, formprint.mc and certprint.mc. Both cbt stacks have the same addresses to the support stacks?! Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Purging Open Stacks? - GOT IT!
If I just let them stay in memory and then try opening them with 'modeless', I get the purge message I was having trouble with. How do I open a stack that may be in memory already or may not have been opened yet in a way such that I don't get the 'purge' dialog appearing? Is the trick to close them in some special way, i.e. not by the user simply clicking on the close window box? There's something else going on here: you should never get that dialog if you just reopen the same stack, regardless of whether it is retained in memory or not. When you *do* get it is when you try to open a stack that has the same name but a different file name. The most likely cause of this is using two different paths to get to the stack (are you changing the directory property at any point?), but setting the fileName property of the stack can also cause it, as can downloading a stack via HTTP and then using "save as" to save it to disk. Regards, Scott Found the problem - in one case I was using a relative path and the other I was using an absolute path. Even though both boiled down to the same thing, using them with the modeless command triggered the purge dialog. Once I made sure that all references were converted into absolute paths (by converting any relative to absolute at run-time), the problem went away. Once again, you were right Scott! Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Purging Open Stacks?
I'm developing a CBT stack which shares a number of supporting stacks with other CBT stacks. These supporting stacks are for things such as on-line help, print previews, etc. They are independent main stacks opened using either "modeless" or "toplevel" (if they're already open but hidden from view). Typically, I open such a support stack and then send and "init" message to it to cause it to configure itself for its current use (using global variables to pass initialisation values). Each supporting stack has "destroy stack on close" and "destroy window on close" enabled so that they fully disappear (in theory) when closed. However, despite this, whenever I attempt to reopen any of these supporting stacks I get an error message saying that I'm attempting to "Reload Stack" and do I want to "Save", "Purge" or "Cancel"! In fact I can get this message 6 or more times in succession, irrespective of how I tell it to go away?? Can anyone suggest a reliable way of opening supporting mainstacks repeatedly without getting this error message? Thanks for any help. Peter -- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Resend: Truncated Columnised Text?
I didn't get any response to this one, so I'm trying again in case it was overlooked! --- I'm trying to display information as pseudo tables in text field using MC2.3.1 on both Mac and Win. I have created field with a set of tabStops and the horizontal and vertical grid liens are displayed. The text in the field is in Arial 12pt, plain, say. What I'm trying to do is write a function that will truncate a chunk of text such that it is guaranteed to fit inside the available pixel width in any given column. I need such a function as I want to be sure that any arbitrary text placed in a column will not overflow and cause content in the columns to the right to overflow. The function I have developed so far is as follows: function colTrimmed theText, theField, theCol put the tabStops of field theField into theTabs replace comma with tab in theTabs set itemDelimiter to tab put number of items in line 1 of field theField into maxCol if theCol = maxCol then put width of field theField - last item of theTabs into colWidthPixels else if theCol = 1 then put item theCol of theTabs - 1 into colWidthPixels else put item theCol of theTabs - item (theCol-1) of theTabs into colWidthPixels end if end if put colWidthPixels div (the effective textSize of field theField) into maxChar return char 1 to maxChar of theText end colTrimmed However, it always seems to be too conservative! For example if the column can accommodate 20 chars (all "0"), it will produce a maximum width of 12 characters. Any suggestions please? Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Truncated Columnised Text?
I'm trying to display information as pseudo tables in text field using MC2.3.1 on both Mac and Win. I have created field with a set of tabStops and the horizontal and vertical grid liens are displayed. The text in the field is in Arial 12pt, plain, say. What I'm trying to do is write a function that will truncate a chunk of text such that it is guaranteed to fit inside the available pixel width in any given column. I need such a function as I want to be sure that any arbitrary text placed in a colunm will not overflow and cause content in the columns to the right to overflow. The function I have developed so far is as follows: function colTrimmed theText, theField, theCol put the tabStops of field theField into theTabs replace comma with tab in theTabs set itemDelimiter to tab put number of items in line 1 of field theField into maxCol if theCol = maxCol then put width of field theField - last item of theTabs into colWidthPixels else if theCol = 1 then put item theCol of theTabs - 1 into colWidthPixels else put item theCol of theTabs - item (theCol-1) of theTabs into colWidthPixels end if end if put colWidthPixels div (the effective textSize of field theField) into maxChar return char 1 to maxChar of theText end colTrimmed However, it always seems to be too conservative! For example if the column can accommodate 20 chars (all "0"), it will produce a maximum width of 12 characters. Any suggestions please? Cheers Peter -- -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Metacard vs Flash
If someone started debating the concept of using MC with "Why don't you just do that in Flash" i.e. pushing Flash as a primary development environment over MetaCard, what would be ten reasons you would give in response? I tried Flash once (before Flash 4.0 came out) and it felt like someone had "hog tied me" compared to the ease of working in XTalk and we decided not to bother learning it. It seemed to me to be a useful animation program, if you wanted to spend all that time and money to make people dizzy when they opened their web page (just joking, I'm sure it has mature uses), but beyond that too constrained an environment to build anything robust with any ease. But I would like some points from the sages on this list to take to the table. Thanks. I'm sure others are doing the same, but I'm using Flash 4 to generate a series of 30 sec animated cartoons for the training points of a CBT package I'm developing in MetaCard. Each animated sequence starts with a blue matt, fades into the sequence and then fades back to a blue matt with summary points in yellow text. Also, every sequence has an accompanying voice-over. I use "Sound Studio" on a Mac to record voice-overs in AIFF format (8bit, 22k, mono). I use QuickTime Player Pro to convert the Flash SWF file into a QT movie and add the voice-over (converted from AIFF to QT). Producing QT movies this way gives the smallest file size for very good quality. A typical 30 sec animated sequence at 8fps is about 750Kb in the form of a QuickTime movie file. This compares extremely well with any form of real video. A professional cartoonist provides me with graphical components in the form of Flash libraries. I then produce animated sequences within Flash using these components. I found it better to produce the voice-over outside Flash and use QuickTime Player to put the animation and voice-over together. Also, QuickTime Player does a better job of generating QT movies than exporting from Flash 4. I use MetaCard's player objects to deliver the animated sequences which the user chooses from a list of subjects. The list of subjects and associated video clips are read from a text file at start-up, giving me the flexibility to change the subjects and animations by simply editing these text files. I'm sure the above is a classic "grandma sucking eggs" thing, but I thought I'd throw in my own experience of combining Flash with MetaCard. Cheers Peter -- ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
MC Encryption?
I've been looking at the Ask Dialog with a view of using a clone of it in my application. However, I'd like to be able to present a traditional "change/set password" dialog where the user is asked to enter their current password and then type in their new password twice. This means I'll need direct access to MC's encryption function. I've checked the on-line help and can't find any reference to encryption in MC apart from stack the protection mechanism. However, when I looked at the scripts of the Ask Dialog, I found the use of an undocumented function "mcencrypt()". Does anyone know the details of this function, what it produces and how secure it is? Also, is there an mcdecrypt() function or is the mechanism one-way only (a very common approach!)? Cheers Peter -- ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: MC Encryption?
I've checked the on-line help and can't find any reference to encryption in MC apart from stack the protection mechanism. However, when I looked at the scripts of the Ask Dialog, I found the use of an undocumented function "mcencrypt()". Does anyone know the details of this function, what it produces and how secure it is? Also, is there an mcdecrypt() function or is the mechanism one-way only (a very common approach!)? It should be fairly secure, but it is only one-way. Regards, Kevin Thanks Kevin. Is there anything else to know about the function "mcencrypt()" (as it's not documented) or just call it with a string and get a string returned?! Cheers Peter -- ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Horizontal scrolling of Tables
I'm using a number of paired fields as tables with a thin field
acting as the table headings and a body field holding the main
content of a given table. Most of the tables only need vertical
scrolling. However, some of these have content that is too wide for
the available window space. Therefor I'm grouping such a pair of
fields and making the "titles" field scroll sideways whenever the
main field is horizontally scrolled by the user.
The body field ("Table" say) uses the following key handler:
on scrollbarDrag
set the hScroll of field (short name of me "Title") to the hScroll of me
end scrollbarDrag
The titles field ("TableTitle" say) uses the following key handler:
on mouseUp
lock screen
set the hScroll of field replaceText(short name of me,"Title","") \
to the hScroll of me
unlock screen
end mouseUp
Both fields have identical tab stop settings and set to use
horizontal scrollbars. The body field overlays the scrollbar of the
title field so it looks like a traditional table.
The problem I'm having is that if I have "columns" off to the right
(outside the current visible area) and scroll the body field, it
doesn't always scroll the title field which behaves as if it doesn't
have entries for the missing columns. It only seem to work fully
when the currently visible columns exactly align with the right hand
edge of the field.
I'm using MC2.3 (the released version not the beta) on the Mac Win
by the way.
Any ideas or suggestions please?!
Peter
Peter Reid
Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK
Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
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Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Urgent Solution Needed: Position in File
What if the first data item in each record were a number whose value is either: - the offset of that record? (this doesn't support record deletions unless the file is never compressed) - the number of that record? (same limitation as above) If you can live with the stated limitation, this would make it easy enough to calculate your position in the file, as long as you have a way of finding the start of the current (or a nearby) record. Compression and renumbering could be done with index rebuilding as part of scheduled file maintenance, I suppose. Hope this helps. (Hope I didn't miss something obvious!) Phil Hi Phil, I've started to try something similar, using the position recorded in an index file which contains the unique key field and locating the last entry. A better partial solution has been provided by Tuviah Snyder, author of CrossWorld's excellent Externals Collection, which I've licensed. Tuviah has released to me a quick update to the Windows Externals to include a couple of functions that return file size and time date of creation and last update. On the Mac front, I have an old HyperCard/SuperCard XCMD collection which includes a single function that gives all the relevant details of a file with separate sizes for data and resource forks. Tuviah is intending to add to the Mac collection the same functions he's popped into the Windows collection, so using the old XFCN is a temporary measure for my prototype development. By the way, the old XCMD collection is called HyperExternals Pro and contains a very good set of XCMDs and XFCNs. It's a pity that it's Mac only as far as I can tell. If you're interested, it seems to be available still through Royal Software (previously known as Heizer Software) on http://www.royalsoftware.com/. Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Urgent Solution Needed: Position in File
Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] said, on 5/2/00 3:56 AM: write newRec to file dataFile at end HOWEVER, I can't then find out where in the file this new record is relative to the start of file and so I can't add an index entry into the associated index file. Given that I know the length of every record... Wouldn't it be possible to store the number of records in the database in a global, and increment the global each time you add a record? Given the fixed record length, it would then be easy to calculate where you are. Obviously, you'd have to maintain that value carefully, decrementing if you delete a record, etc. I'd have to keep track across sessions across time. As this CBT is intended to be used by several hundred people sending results back to several dozen assessors, it would mean keeping such a counter in another file (with more lock control!). What is frustrating is that it's likely that MetaCard probably has the information anyway (through stdio calls such as fstat etc.) as well as current position information?! But that begs the question: why not use a commercial database? The problem I have is that I can't dictate the databases to be used in a corporate environment. Also, unfortunately MetaCard doesn't integrate into standard cross platform multi-user databases and the Valentina development (mentioned on this list some time ago) isn't ready for Mac Win use as yet. This is why I want to keep it "in-house" by using MetaCard, which is being used for the main CBT anyway. Ideally I'd use an XCMD/DLL solution which provided all the multi-user database facilities I needed - this is what Valentina is developing into, but not in my timescales! Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Urgent Solution Needed: Position in File
PLEASE does anyone have a solution or some externals that work Mac Win that give basic file statistics (file size in bytes as a minimum, but other basic stats would be nice, e.g. time date updated). The lack of any obvious solution is a real potential SHOW STOPPER! I think there are a lot of MetaCard compatible Mac externals which will do this inluding AppleScript via the external collection. In Windows I think shell() is the best way to go. My worry is that I'd be dependent on correctly functioning AppleScript on Mac and shell on Win, which adds more fragility to the situation! Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Urgent Solution Needed: Position in File
I'm a long way into the development of a database to support a CBT package. The database consists of over 20 tables each with a number of indices. These are implemented using a collection of text files, each of which has fixed length records (really variable length, but padded to be fixed length to facilitate in situ record updates). I've sorted out most aspects of how to get this to work, even using locking files to control multi-user access. BUT, my big remaining problem is how to tell where I am in a file, especially if I've just added a record to the end of it. I'm storing character offsets in separate index files so I can do rapid look-up. Thus, I need to record in an index the exact character offset from start of file of any new record. As I add records to the end of files, this means that I'm writing using something like: write newRec to file dataFile at end HOWEVER, I can't then find out where in the file this new record is relative to the start of file and so I can't add an index entry into the associated index file. Given that I know the length of every record, just knowing the full character length of the file would allow me to calculate the offset of the last record. Ideally, I would like to ask "where am I now" after any read/write from/to a text file. My data files could grow to up to 200Mb over the 5 year period I'm building for. So I don't want to "read from start" simply to count the number of records in a file!! PLEASE does anyone have a solution or some externals that work Mac Win that give basic file statistics (file size in bytes as a minimum, but other basic stats would be nice, e.g. time date updated). The lack of any obvious solution is a real potential SHOW STOPPER! Thanks in advance for any help provided. Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Urgent Solution Needed: Position in File
On 2/5/00 3:12 pm, Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I think there are a lot of MetaCard compatible Mac externals which will
do this inluding AppleScript via the external collection. In Windows I
think shell() is the best way to go.
My worry is that I'd be dependent on correctly functioning
AppleScript on Mac and shell on Win, which adds more fragility to
the situation!
AFAIK, shell() should work reliably without fragility on Windows. On the
Mac, there *must* be any number of HC compatible XCMDs out there that return
this information.
Thanks for the advice. I'll look amongst my stock of old HC/SC XCMDs
for something for the Mac. However, I'm struggling with Windows (how
unusual??).
Under Windows 98, I've just tried a command such as:
put shell("dir c:\test.txt") into field "Info"
but I get no details! If I do the following:
put shell("dir c:\test.txt info.txt") into theResult
then I get the DIR output in the text file "info.txt".
Any idea how I can get file information directly into a field or
variable without having to send it to another file first?! Also, do
you know if this works reliably with NT (there's some comment about
changing to cmd.exe in NT in the MetaCard on-line help)?
Cheers
Peter
----
Peter Reid
Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK
Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Replacing with EOL Character
Hi I'm processing a large number of lines from a text file that are padded at the end of each line with a tab followed by a variable number of 'x', e.g. data(tab)xx data2(tab)x data3(tab)xx Whilst I can use a repeat loop to cycle through deleting the last item (using tab as the itemDelimiter), this is very slow. If there were a fixed number of 'x' at the end then I'd simply use a replace command, e.g. replace tab "xxx" with "" in readBuffer I thought about using the replaceText function which support regular expressions, but I can't see how I can show the tab and end-of-line (EOL) in the regex? I would have tried: put replaceText(readBuffer, "\txx*\n", "\n") into newBuffer Any ideas how I might do this or perhaps another approach completely? Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Replacing with EOL Character
Thanks Kevin - good idea. I used the following code: -- with file data already in newInfo: set itemDelimiter to tab put empty into modInfo repeat for each line i in newInfo get i put item 1 to -2 of it return after modInfo end repeat You've an extra line in there: repeat for each line i in newInfo put item 1 to -2 of i return after modInfo end if I did that deliberately as I thought it might be quicker getting a line 1st and then extracting the items rather than doing it in-line. However, my testing seems to show no advantage for the extra line, so "KISS" wins (Keep It Simple Stupid!) and the extra line goes. Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re:
I am a Macintosh HyperCard/SuperCard developer who is considering MetaCard because of its cross-platform capabilities. Suppose I produce a Macintosh standalone application with a Macintosh version of MetaCard. How do I convert that product to a Windows standalone? Do I need a Windows version of MetaCard? Do I have to use a WinTel computer? It is possible to produce the Windows standalone without actually having Windows, but it is best to at least check it out afterwards. Your choice is either use a Windows PC or something like Virtual PC with Windows as required. Mac-based MetaCard developers seem to use a mixture of these approaches. As an ex HyperCard/SuperCard developer, I've found the move to MetaCard very worthwhile for a whole number of reasons, not the least of which is this superb list which never seems to fail to come up with solutions in record time! The plus points for MetaCard are: - excellent product, very stable - very extensive range of capabilities - very high level of cross-platform compatibility (I can vouch for Mac/Win) - very rapid execution of stacks (using a Player) and standalones - very responsive developer (MetaCard Corp) - product actively being developed, not rotting on the shelf - very flexible licensing - a single user needs a single licence that can be used across platforms by that single user - 1x cost for all platforms (unlike Director say which costs twice for both Mac and in) - extremely helpful and responsive e-mail list On the downside: - development environment rather intimidating (new one under development through Xworlds should be a lot better) - incomplete documentation, often making it hard to even guess what should be done (again, being addressed by MetaCard Corp and Xworlds) - lack of "street credibility and knowledge" - too few people know what a great tool it is and so you end up having to sell it to your customers as a "good thing" I had to gulp at the entry fee ($995 + $300 pa thereafter to keep up to date - half these costs if you're academic) as a single developer, but I must say it is good "value for money". It took me sometime to justify in my mind the cost of a full licence, but having done so I don't regret it, I only wish I'd done so earlier! Of course the above are just my humble opinions, I'm sure others on this list will chip in with more of even refute some of my criticisms! Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Position in File?
Hi I'm using a buffer to provide access to a large text file of up to 200Mb in total. The user can jump around the text file using buttons for next/prev group of records and start/end of file. The problem I have is that I don't see how I can tell where I am in the file at any given point. There doesn't seem to be any command for determining the current read or write point in an open file. Any suggestions please? Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
UK Academic MC Developers/Users?
Whilst I'm now a MetaCard convert, actively developing product for Win/Mac, my query now is related to my wife's work. She is a Chemistry lecturer at the local university and is trying to move into "distance learning". Her university are looking at implementing a range of computer-based/aided learning facilities as part of this. To date, they have done what little development so far using AuthorWare and this is the current "standard". However, I'm keen to introduce them to MetaCard. So, what I'm looking for from the list is the following: 1) good arguments regarding MetaCard vs AuthorWare 2) any UK academics who actively use MetaCard who'd be prepared to "speak up" for MetaCard's suitability in the UK academic arena Please bear in mind the the university is currently trying to force Mac users to move to Windows NT (but meeting stiff rearguard action!), they use a mixture of HPUX and NT servers and have a variety of Unix workstations (Sun, CGI) in various pockets. The computer service is trying to standardise on Windows NT for all undergraduate teaching to make support easier! So a Windows-only solution wouldn't bother them. However, as Mac users (with other friends and colleagues also being Mac and Unix workstation users), my wife and I would like to encourage a more cross-platform approach. One potential "blinkered view" is the old chestnut of "browser plug-in vs player" argument. This is a view I'm meeting in a number of quarters, not just at the local university - "can it run through a browser?". Are we likely to see a MetaCard browser plug-in in the reasonably near future? Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Multiple Access to Files?
I'm developing a CBT package which needs to store user progress details on a central file server. Various people might wish to look at such details whilst the master "database" is being updated. I want to have a database consisting of several related files which are open for multiple-readers and a single-writer at the same time. This is being developed for use under Win 95/98/NT and MacOS. Can anyone tell me what the behaviour is of MC's file handling in such a situation? In particular: - does MC "lock" a file when opened so other programs cannot access it? - can reader programs see a consistent view of a file that is being updated or will they see garbage? I'm trying to implement a database using a collection of files linked through "key fields" such as EmployeeNumber, LocationCode, etc. Ideally, I would do random access lookup of keyed items. Is there any simple way of doing this with MC's file handling, only it looks "sequential only" to me. Even the "seek" seems to be "rapid sequential" and dependent on using fixed length "records" for the purposes I have in mind. Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received! Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Sending E-mail from MC?
Sorry if this is obvious, but is there a simple way of sending e-mail from MC2.3g under Windows (preferably Mac as well, but less vital). I'm writing a CBT where the end results are to be e-mailed to a central coordinator if possible. Given that this could be on any Win 95/98/NT (2000?) system, do I need to know the details of actual e-mail/browser packages or can I send a general mail protocol message that ill use whatever e-mail system is supported? Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Portable Mouse Movement?
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000 10:36:51 +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In the case of the CBTs I'm currently developing, I'm using the mouse movement to show the user what they would do with the mouse when using a particular feature of a software system. Such "simulations", if they are to be realistic, must appear to use the same controls as in the live system. In this case, I think it is legitimate to move the mouse despite Apple's thoughts on the matter! Peter, I've done this kind of simulation in my CBTs, but instead of moving the actual cursor, I hide the cursor and move an image that looks like the cursor. I would think that this strategy would work equally well in all environments. Regards, Marni Marni, I think you're right, I was beginning to think of moving to the same approach. The main thing that stops me is inertia and effort retrofitting the approach to the developments so far! Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Portable Mouse Movement?
I'm moving the mouse under script control as part of several CBT developments suing MC 2.2.5 and MC 2.3 for Mac and Win 98/NT. (I'm using two different versions because the earlier one is installed across a customer's corporate network and I can't get them to upgrade this for the time being! I'm using the latest version for new developments for other customers). The idea is that the mouse is used to draw the user's attention to different parts of the screen. So far, this mouse movement has worked fine on various Macs and PCs. However, I now find that it doesn't work on my PowerBook G3/333 "Bronze" - the mouse just sits in one location! My desktop Mac (a G3/300 uprated clone) and my PowerBook both run MacOS 8.6, have the same amount of RAM (128Mb), and identical copies of the MetaCard "Player" (I've copied from one system to the other to be sure). I've tried both MC 2.2.5 and MC 2.3 gamma. Both versions work fine with my desktop Mac (and with my laptop Win 98 PC), but not my PowerBook??? The following is the code I'm using for scripted mouse movement: on moveMouse fromLoc,toLoc,inSteps,moveDelayTicks put absLoc(fromLoc) into absFrom put absLoc(toLoc) into absTo put (item 1 of absTo - item 1 of absFrom) div inSteps into xInc put (item 2 of absTo - item 2 of absFrom) div inSteps into yInc put item 1 of absFrom into x put item 2 of absFrom into y set the screenMouseLoc to absFrom repeat with i = 1 to inSteps add xInc to x add yInc to y set the screenMouseLoc to x,y wait moveDelayTicks ticks end repeat set the screenMouseLoc to absTo end moveMouse function absLoc relLoc get the topLeft of this stack put item 1 of it into stackX put item 2 of it into stackY put item 1 of relLoc + stackX into absX put item 2 of relLoc + stackY into absY return absX comma absY into theLoc end absLoc Any ideas why this doesn't work on a PowerBook when it does on a variety of other systems? Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Portable Mouse Movement?
Well, here on my G3 333 minitower (last of the beiges!) , it doesn't work. I remember trying it awhile ago, and it worked fine. That was when I was running 8.1. I now have Mac OS 9 (believe me, if you're running pre 8.5, get it... it's great!) , and it doesn't work worth beans. I am using a third party (macally) ADB mouse, but I highly doubt that's it. The problem is mac os 9 specific, I'm sure. I believe there's something about Mac OS 9 taking away quite a few functions of QuickDraw, one including the ability to delay the updating of a window. However, apps that do that will just crash instantly in 9... maybe you wanna check if that's anywhere in there scott, eh? :) Regards, Scott PS: I don't really understand the engine code that does this, but do know that it's one of the things that isn't Carbon compliant and so will have to be changed... You're probably thinking the same as me... you guys would know the actual code problems, I suppose... if not, talk to the apple. Not sure it's a MacOS 9 thing, my experience is: - desktop G3/300 running MacOS 8.6 - OK - PowerBook G3/333 running MacOS 8.6 - FAIL - iMac 350 running MacOS 9 - OK - PC running Win 98 - OK So, not necessarily MacOS 9?! Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Controlling Audio Clips?
In a similar vein to my query regarding GIF control, any thoughts on controlling the playback of an audio clip without using a "player"? I can see how I can start stop an audio clip, but not how to pause and resume it. Also, I can't see how I can get the length of an audio clip or set it's position to some arbitrary point in the clip. Are there any audio commands equivalent to the video commands currentFrame, frameCount, palindromeFrames, repeatCount which Scott Rossi mentioned? Does the "player" object ALWAYS use QuickTime even when it is playing a sound clip or an animated GIF. Is there no way to use a "player" object without QuickTime? As ever, thanks for your patience and any help. Best regards Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Controlling GIF Animations?
Recently, Peter Reid wrote: Can anyone tell me ho it might be possible to run an animated GIF file in MC with some measure of control WITHOUT using a player object (which relies on having QuickTime available I believe). Just import it (via the file menu), or set the fileName of a new image object to the directory path of your animation file. I'd like to be able to start and stop GIF animations, know how far through a sequence one is, how many frames etc. See the MetaTalk Reference index under: currentFrame frameCount palindromeFrames repeatCount Regards, Scott Thanks Scott, I thought I was missing something obvious (again)! I have discovered an added problem. I have a large animated GIF of 2.5Mb which plays fine as long as I keep it external (a good idea anyway!). However, when I try to run an optimised version of the same thing MC crashes freezing my Mac! The original animated GIF was built using GIFBuilder, which was also used to produce the optimised version (only 750k). The optimisation involves the use of "betweened" frames instead of whole frames, i.e. each successive frame is sized to include an overlay sufficient to update the previous frame. The problem is that GIFbuilder adds some frames that are 1x1 pixels in size located at (0,0) and it is the presence of these tiny frames that cause MC to freeze! Removing these frames removes the problem. Another tip is to avoid using the "P" (restore to previous) frame disposal method as it doesn't really work with MC, stick to "N" (do not dispose) which works fine. Cheers Peter PS this is all using MC 2.3 gamma on a Mac running MacOS 8.6 -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Controlling Audio Clips?
In a similar vein to my query regarding GIF control, any thoughts on controlling the playback of an audio clip without using a "player"? I can see how I can start stop an audio clip, but not how to pause and resume it. Also, I can't see how I can get the length of an audio clip or set it's position to some arbitrary point in the clip. Are there any audio commands equivalent to the video commands currentFrame, frameCount, palindromeFrames, repeatCount which Scott Rossi mentioned? Nope, nor is there even any way to pause and resume. OK, looks like it'll have to be player objects then! Does the "player" object ALWAYS use QuickTime even when it is playing a sound clip or an animated GIF. Is there no way to use a "player" object without QuickTime? The player object will use VfW if QT is not available, but there is no way to force it to do this if QT *is* available (yet). The main problem is having to provide more detailed coding for those poor souls who won't/can't use QuickTime on their PCs. I'm developing a series of CBT packages that'll use animated cartoons (GIFs with voice-overs) for illustration rather than video clips to keep the file sizes down for use across corporate networks. However, to cater for those users who can't use sound, I have to provide pop up caption boxes to give a textual equivalent to the voice-overs. Coordinating animation with sound and pop-up cations calls for quite fine control over the pause/resume etc! This is why I need as much control as possible from player objects, even if they are using VfW instead of QuickTime. Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Controlling GIF Animations?
I have discovered an added problem. I have a large animated GIF of 2.5Mb which plays fine as long as I keep it external (a good idea anyway!). However, when I try to run an optimised version of the same thing MC crashes freezing my Mac! The original animated GIF was built using GIFBuilder, which was also used to produce the optimised version (only 750k). The optimisation involves the use of "betweened" frames instead of whole frames, i.e. each successive frame is sized to include an overlay sufficient to update the previous frame. Please send me one of those images. Can't guarantee that we can make it look right, but at least it shouldn't crash! I'm sending an example off list (it's a bit big at 750k!). The problem is that GIFbuilder adds some frames that are 1x1 pixels in size located at (0,0) and it is the presence of these tiny frames that cause MC to freeze! Removing these frames removes the problem. Another tip is to avoid using the "P" (restore to previous) frame disposal method as it doesn't really work with MC, stick to "N" (do not dispose) which works fine. You might try the constantMask property, which disables the mask feature of GIFs. There are lots of hacks that some of those GIF exporting programs use in order to produce small files, most of which result in images that don't work right except in browser windows (no backgrounds, no buffering, no moving, no overlaying on or under other objects, etc.). constantMask gets around one of these hacks, although it does mean you give up the ability to do any of the above. I'll experiment with the constantMask property as you suggest. Thanks. Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Controlling GIF Animations?
Can anyone tell me ho it might be possible to run an animated GIF file in MC with some measure of control WITHOUT using a player object (which relies on having QuickTime available I believe). I'd like to be able to start and stop GIF animations, know how far through a sequence one is, how many frames etc. From what I can tell, this seems to be possible only when using QuickTime enabled player objects. As ever, I know the benefits of QT, but I can't guarantee my customers will agree! Thanks for any help. Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
RE: Tables/ fields
For sortable colum/table widget, here is a solution: 1. Create a field 2. In the field's properties dialog box: Set the hGrid and vGrid to true Enter tab stops in the Tabstops field (50,90,130,170 as example) 3. Enter information in the field one row at a time, by hitting tab key for each colum in a row. Hit return key when you come to the end of row. Cursor takes you to the next row in the field 4. Put a button above or below each column 5. Script for sorting the field by colum in each button will be: sort lines of field "myField" by word 1 of each (sort each line/row by first colum) or sort lines of field "myFidle" by word 3 of each (sort each line/row by 3rd colum) You can also set the itemDelimiter to "tab" and sort by items if your items must be able to have spaces in them. Blair Moxon I've used the sorting and it works well - as you say you can use tab delimited material as well. Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Associative Arrays?
There's an example similar to what you need to do in the Examples stack (card 6). The best way to do this depends mostly on how often you need to search that data. If only occasionally, you're probably better off just keeping the data in a custom property and using offset() or lineOffset() to do the lookups. Using associative arrays is mostly useful if you have to do a lot of lookups quickly, or if the data is compressed in the process of indexing (as in the word-count example). Arrays, like fields, are relatively inefficient at storing large amounts of textual data because it expands some when stored this way. Regards, Scott There is also an example of importing a file and splitting it into an array on our web site, the article "Text Management" - go down to the heading "Splitting up large amounts of data to perform text matching operations". Regards, Kevin Thanks Scott Kevin - I'll look at both to see what I can do with associative arrays. Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Tables/ fields
At the moment, this kind of thing can just about be done, but it requires
complex and painful scripting. I believe there are one or two example
stacks where people have tried varying different ways to produce a table
like this, check out the contributors section to see if anything does what
you need. Improving field features is certainly under consideration for
2.4.
Regards,
Kevin
I've managed to do within-column wrapping by using a hidden
additional field ('temp' say). I size this to the pixel width of a
column and lay the text into this temp field. Then I get the
'formattedText' of this field which has hard line returns in it and
place this into the target field.
The following handler returns hard wrapped lines of text (Note: it
assumes the target field uses same font metrics as the temp field,
otherwise you'd have to pass and set textFont, textSize, textStyle,
etc. within the handler):
function wrappedText theText, pixelWidth
put theText into field "Temp"
set the width of field "Temp" to pixelWidth
return the formattedText of field "Temp"
end wrappedText
You can calculate the 'pixelWidth' of a column as follows (I make it
slightly smaller than it really is to make the text wrap avoid going
too close to the column margin):
put the tabStops of field tableField into theTabs
set the itemDelimiter to comma
put item 2 of theTabs - item 1 of theTabs - 10 into col1Width
put item 3 of theTabs - item 2 of theTabs - 10 into col2Width
# etc.
Placing variable length wrapped text in a 'table' together with other
material can be a bit challenging, but the following script snippet
shows how I did it (I assume that I have a sourceText variable that
contains table 'rows' as lines, with each 'column' value separated
from the next by a tab):
set itemDelimiter to tab
put 1 into tableLine
repeat for each line i in sourceText
# put non-wrapping stuff in first:
put item 1 of i into item 1 of line tableLine of field tableField
put item 4 of i into item 4 of line tableLine of field tableField
# generate wrapped text:
put wrappedText(item 2 of i,col2Width) into col2
put wrappedText(item 3 of i,col3Width) into col3
# work out max depth of wrapping columns:
put max(number of lines in col2,number of lines in col3) into maxLine
# now place wrapped fragments into the columns:
repeat with k = 1 to maxLine
put line k of col2 into col2Fragment
if col2Fragment is not empty then \
put col2Fragment into item 2 of line tableLine of field tableField
put line k of col3 into col3Fragment
if col3Fragment is not empty then \
put col3Fragment into item 3 of line tableLine of field tableField
add 1 to tableLine
end repeat
end repeat
By way of a 'bonus', the following handler returns the number of the
column of a 'table' clicked by the user - quite useful for using
'switch' within the table's mouseUp handler:
function clickColumn clickPixel, theTabs
set itemDelimiter to comma
put 1 into theColumn
repeat with t = (number of items in theTabs - 1) down to 1
if clickPixel = (item t of theTabs) then
put t + 1 into theColumn
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
return theColumn
set itemDelimiter to tab
end clickColumn
You can determine the 'clickPixel' of a field and then convert this
into the clicked column as follows:
put clickH() - left of me into theClickPixel
put clickColumn(theClickPixel, the tabStops of me) into theClickedColumn
I wouldn't like to claim the above is the most elegant or efficient
way of producing wrapping tables, but it does work!
Cheers
Peter
PS Sorry if this is contribution is a bit long!
--------
Peter Reid
Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK
Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
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Re: Blank Images from Disk (Mac MC2.3g)
From: Peter Reid [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Blank Images from Disk (Mac MC2.3g)? Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 11:58:16 + MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I'm trying to load various images that make up the screen design of my stack directly from disk files rather than have them embedded. However, if I use something like the following: set the fileName of image "MainTitle" to "/MacHD/Images/title.gif" I just get blank filled rectangles instead of the images themselves. If I select the same file from within the MetaCard development environment, it displays correctly. I've even looked at the source code in this part of the development environment and can't see where it's doing anything different to me, but my code simply doesn't work?! Any suggestions please, this is driving me nuts! Just call me stoopid!! I was using relative file locations and a control file to set up various folder offsets. However, I'd forgotten to declare one of the sub paths as a global and so it had an empty value at the point where it was being used to access the images! Sorry to have bothered the list with my stupidity!! Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Blank Images from Disk (Mac MC2.3g)?
I'm trying to load various images that make up the screen design of my stack directly from disk files rather than have them embedded. However, if I use something like the following: set the fileName of image "MainTitle" to "/MacHD/Images/title.gif" I just get blank filled rectangles instead of the images themselves. If I select the same file from within the MetaCard development environment, it displays correctly. I've even looked at the source code in this part of the development environment and can't see where it's doing anything different to me, but my code simply doesn't work?! Any suggestions please, this is driving me nuts! Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Blank Images from Disk (Mac MC2.3g)?
At 11:58 AM + 14/2/2000, Peter Reid wrote: I'm trying to load various images that make up the screen design of my stack directly from disk files rather than have them embedded. However, if I use something like the following: set the fileName of image "MainTitle" to "/MacHD/Images/title.gif" I just get blank filled rectangles instead of the images themselves. If I select the same file from within the MetaCard development environment, it displays correctly. I've even looked at the source code in this part of the development environment and can't see where it's doing anything different to me, but my code simply doesn't work?! Hi Peter Try the file path without the leading forward slash: set the fileName of image "MainTitle" to "MacHD/Images/title.gif" Cheers Dave Cragg Tried it, no difference! By the way, if I use the development environment to select the file, it specifies the filename with a leading "/". So, I'm fairly sure that the path should start with a leading "/" anyway! Thanks anyway. Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Blank Images from Disk (Mac MC2.3g)?
Tried it, no difference! By the way, if I use the development environment to select the file, it specifies the filename with a leading "/". So, I'm fairly sure that the path should start with a leading "/" anyway! Thanks anyway. Peter Sorry about that useless piece of help. :) If it's of any use, your script works fine on my Mac (MC 2.3g). I bet that makes you feel good. :) Cheers Dave Cragg Thanks for the feedback - always welcome even if it doesn't provide a solution ;) I wonder what's causing things to go wrong on my system??? Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
MetaCard for MachTen Unix?
Currently I don't develop for Unix delivery, only Mac Win. However, I'd be keen to experiment and develop the facility, but only have MachTen Unix on my Mac. MachTen comes from the same origins as MacOS X and will likely disappear once MacOS X is widely available. In the meantime, MachTen is the only Unix I have and I'd wondered whether anyone has tried running MetaCard under it? (MachTen is based on Berkely's Mach development and comes with the usual Unix collection of facilities and includes the X11 window system as well). Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Synchronising Animated GIF with Voice?
I'm thinking of using some animated GIF's in a CBT (actually animated cartoons to illustrate various things). I'd like to be able to play a voice-over that synchronises with the GIF. In addition, I'd like to be able to tell how far through an animated GIF I am at any time so I can pop up captions as and when needed. The GIF's would only cycle once, i.e. play from start to end with no repetition. Any thoughts, suggestions, warnings please?! Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: VfW Playback using MCISendString?
On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Peter Reid wrote: Since I don't seem to be able to playback AVI files under VfW using MC 2.3Gamma, can anyone tell me how I might be able to control AVI playing using the MCISendString function? Anyone else have this problem? Playback of AVI files using the built-in VfW features works fine here. Of course you don't get the same capabilities you get with QT (e.g., no controller, no selections, and no alwaysBuffer) Regards, Scott I've discovered that the problem seems to be if I set the "lockLocation" of the player to true: - when the player lockLocation is true, the sound plays, but no video, - when the player lockLocation is false, the sound and video play. I checked this behaviour with the latest MC2.3 Gamma (downloaded over the weekend). Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Sound-only Playing VfW using MC2.3Gamma?
I've been using QuickTime to play back video clips on a Win 98 system using MetaCard 2.3Gamma. This has worked fine. However, when I uninstalled QT and tried the same stack using VfW I've hit a problem. When I try playing a video clip I hear the sound track but don't see the video track at all, not even an empty frame. Also, I can't control the playLoudness of the sound playing. If I use the Win Media Player, then the video clips play back fine with control over the sound playback volume. So I know it's not that the Win system doesn't have the CODECs for the video clips. Given my need to support "vanilla" Win users (whatever my preference for QT), this is a show-stopper! Anyone got any suggestions please! Cheers Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 75876 UK Mobile: 0378 632533 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.demon.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Win 98 QT Freeze?
When looking for bugs related to display on a Windows 98 system, the place to start is in the screen drivers, most of which are obscenely buggy. The fact that you get a total system lockup is even better evidence because neither QT nor MetaCard should be able to cause this, whereas it's a hallmark characteristic of a driver bug. So, make sure you've got the latest drivers for that graphics card, try turning off acceleration in the "Display" and/or "System" control panels, and if all else fails, try swapping the graphics card with another brand or model. Regards, Scott Thanks for the rapid response - I'll start with trying to turn off acceleration. Unfortunately, with laptops, changing the display card is rarely an option. At best, you might get newer drivers - with a fresh batch of bugs! Cheers Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
PlayLoudness of Video Clips?
I'm using a player object under MC2.3b3/gamma to show videoClips and I've set up a scrollBar to control the playLoudness of the videoClip. This works fine on the Mac, but has not effect under Win 98? The PC has QT4.02 installed as well as VfW. The videoClips are AVI with sound that is either muLaw2:1 or 16bit Little Endian. Both types of video clip play sound ok using either QT or Media Player on the PC and both play ok under MC2.3, it's just that I can't control the playback volume in MC2.3 using playLoundess. If I show the controller for the player instead of using my own controls, its volume control works fine. So it seems that the audio track of a video clip is treated as an audio clip on the Mac (playLoudess works ok), but not on the PC (playLoudness has no effect). Whilst the current test PC has QT, some of my client's machine will only have VfW, which is why I'm not using the video controller (not supported by VfW, only QT), but implementing my own controls instead. Any ideas? Any workarounds? A quick response would be appreciated as I'm right up against a deadline and suddenly found a feature that works on my development system (Mac), but not on my deployment system (PC)! Thanks Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 UK Mobile: 0378 632533 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.demon.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Scale Style Vertical vs Horizontal
I'm trying to create a vertical scale button in MC 2.3B3 on a Mac. If I size it so that it displays horizontally, then I get a thin horizontal rectangle with a downward pointing arrowhead symbol across the rectangle. However, if I resize the scale button so that it displays vertically, I end up with a vertical rectangle box that contains a slider rectangle instead?! I'd like to have a vertical scale that looks like a horizontal scale on its side - how do I do this? Thanks for any help. Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Scale Style Vertical vs Horizontal
I'm trying to create a vertical scale button in MC 2.3B3 on a Mac. If I size it so that it displays horizontally, then I get a thin horizontal rectangle with a downward pointing arrowhead symbol across the rectangle. However, if I resize the scale button so that it displays vertically, I end up with a vertical rectangle box that contains a slider rectangle instead?! I'd like to have a vertical scale that looks like a horizontal scale on its side - how do I do this? Unfortunately this is not supported. Your choices are horizontal or Motif look and feel. But this limitation should be documented in the README, which I'll bug report. And, yes, this is already on the feature-request list for the 2.4 release... Regards, Scott OK, at least I know I haven't been stupid (on this occasion!) and missed something obvious! Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Support for Windows Video in MC 2.3?
If 'timescale' isn't supported, what units is 'duration' in? Looks like milliseconds... OK, thanks So I can create my own controller with pause, stop and start and use the 'formattedWidth' and 'formattedHeight' together with 'scale' to control the size of the playback frame. Can I set the 'currentTime' to effect a forward/reverse effect? Yes. Fine. Thanks again, Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
QuickTime 4 Messages
Can someone give details of the messages that a player object (for QT4 movies) will receive and which functions return sensible results for MC 2.3B3. I'm experimenting with the level of control possible with QuickTime 4 movies. If possible, I'd like to know that the user has paused a movie and clicked on it at a particular location. This would allow me to show some form of highlight graphic, superimposed over the top of the player object. I'm trying to develop some training material where the user is expected to watch a QT4 movie and stop it when they see something of significance. Once stopped, I'd like to ask them to click on something within the stopped frame and sense whether they clicked on the right thing or not. Also, does a player object receive the mouseUp event when clicked anywhere other than the control bar. This would allow me to get the user to stop the playback by simply clicking anywhere in the playback frame rather than on the pause button in the control bar. Thanks for any help. Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk PLEASE NOTE NEW FAX NUMBER FROM 12/12/1999 This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Win NT Network MC Issues?
Hi I'm considering developing some educational material for deployment on networks such as those based on NT Server and NT Workstations. Are there any issues related to installing either a standalone exe built with MC or with a server mounted copy of the Player and a series of MC stacks? Can multiple workstations run the Player from a Server and similarly can multiple workstations run a standalone on a Server? Thanks for any input. Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk PLEASE NOTE NEW FAX NUMBER FROM 12/12/1999 This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Scrollable Window/Stack?
If you use the "built-in" scrollbars for the group, you won't have to worry about setting any scrollbar properties. You can set horizontal and vertical scrollbars for groups in the group properties palette. Thanks I discovered this after I sent my last plea for help - it certainly makes life easier! Here's a suggestion (it still requires some struggling). First create a graphic rectangle and set its width and height to the likely maximum width and height of the group. These are the overall dimensions, not the visible height and width. (You can adjust this later after editing.) Make a group from the rectangle. Set the scrollbar properties. Set the width and height properties for the group. These will be the visible dimensions of the group. Position the group where you want it. Set the lockLocation property to true. (If you don't do this, the group will resize to its full size (formattedHeight and formattedWidth) whenever you edit it. Not pleasant! When you edit a group, its scrollbars won't be visible while in editing mode. So first you need to scroll to the position you want to edit, then go into editing mode. When you need to edit in a non visible location, you need to come out of editing mode, adjust the scroll, and go back in again. When you've finished the editing, hide the rectangle. This will force the group to shrink to the overall dimensions of the objects in the group. Let me know if you find an easier way to do this. :) In general, I prefer to get all the objects I need into a group first, and then set the various sizes and locations afterwards by script. Cheers Dave Cragg I like the idea of the big rectangle to establish the right sized group. I did something similar (but less elegant) by having a large text field that I moved down the group to make space as I added more element to the 'page'. Once I'd arranged all the elements as I wanted them I threw away the text field. I couldn't find a better way than your or my method, so unless one of the real MC experts tells us differently, it looks like this approach might be the only way. I was surprised that MC stacks/windows can't have scrollbars and the vScroll property. I've used this feature in SuperCard, HyperCard and ToolBook developments. This is why I tried to use a 'sub-window' approach initially. Thanks again for the help. Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Scrollable Window/Stack?
On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, Peter Reid wrote: (big snip) I was surprised that MC stacks/windows can't have scrollbars and the vScroll property. I've used this feature in SuperCard, HyperCard and ToolBook developments. This is why I tried to use a 'sub-window' approach initially. This has been discussed (ad nauseum) on this list in the past, but you really already discovered the key issue in the diagram you posted to the list: if you want to have a menubar and toolbar and status bar in the window along with the scrollable area, the HyperCard/SuperCard/ToolBook design of making the whole window scroll is essentially useless. Only the MetaCard way of having independent scrolling groups does what you need, even though it's a little more difficult to set up. Regards, Scott As a relatively new user of MC I wasn't aware of the previous discussions on this subject, otherwise I'd have saved myself some scrambling around in the dark! You're absolutely right that the HyperCard/SuperCard/ToolBook approach provides its own level of pain. What would make life easier would be the option to scroll the window whilst editing a background/group so you don't need to keep switching between edit and run mode just to move up or down a bit. Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Scrollable Window/Stack?
What would make life easier would be the option to scroll the window whilst editing a background/group so you don't need to keep switching between edit and run mode just to move up or down a bit. It might help you to know that you can edit a group without ungrouping first. Choose Preferences submenu and in Layout select Grouped Controls - you have access to edit all objects in a group, though you must be in edit mode. Regrds, Andu Thanks Andu. I did realise you could do that and have been using the facility you mention. The problem comes when you have an 'oversize' group that scrolls in browse mode. This requires you to flip between edit browse mode to work on the different parts of the oversized group - using edit mode to make changes and browse mode to scroll to a different part of the group. Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Scrollable Window/Stack?
I'm trying to simulate Netscape in a CBT package. What I'd like to do is have a 'frame' stack which contains the Netscape button bars and edges with an inner stack that contains the Netscape page. I've worked out how to keep the page stack above the frame stack and how to size it to fit precisely within the frame stack. However, I haven't figured out how I can have a scrollable window/stack? I want the 'page' to be a pseudo Netscape form with labels, buttons, fields etc. that is larger than the frame and so it'll require a scrollbar. IS there some simple obvious way of doing this by turning on a "scrollable" property for the stack/card, or do I have to add a scrollbar object and script it to scroll the stack/card? Thanks Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Shared Text and Shared Scripts
I've had a play around with this, but could do with some assistance. I think the answer is quite simple. I've got a 12 card stack with a background. The background contains a field with the 'Shared Text' property unchecked. This means that when I run my script (which repeats from 1 to 12 and sets the contents of the relevant field to that number) it works fine. I've got another script which is meant to set the script of each field. I read in a separate field which contains the script and replace a known variable with the number of the card. This is then meant to set the script of each field to something like on mouseup go cd 3 of wd "Day" end mouseup where the number is replaced by the number of the card. The problem is that unlike the "Shared Text" property the script for each field reads on mouseup go cd 12 of wd "Day" end mouseup ie its setting the script of each field to the last script in the loop. This is a simplified explanation of a larger project. I guess I could create 'foreground' fields for each card but when I do that (due to the large number of fields on a card) the 'set up script' loop takes an age. So, is there anyway to define different scripts to background fields ? Or is the whole point that you can't or shouldn't ? TIA Gary Rathbone Hooknet I'd be tempted to have a single generic script for all the fields. If each card contains a field which has a unique card number in it (assuming I understand you correctly), then simply use this value within the field scripts: on mouseUp go cd (field "CardNo") of wd "Day" end mouseUp Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Scrollable Window/Stack?
I seem to be having some problems using MC 2.2.5 with a Mac (running MacOS 8.6) and getting a group to scroll. Firstly, I don't seem to be able to set the thumbSize for a scrollBar, it looks to be its default size whatever its actual size it is set to? However, I'm also struggling to get the behaviour I'm after. My window layout is as follows: | pseudo Netscape buttons bars | | | - fixed button bar area | | ||^| ||-| || | || | || | | scrollable Netscape page area | | - scrollable pseudo page | (trying to use a group for this) | | || | - scrollbar is not part of group || | || | ||_| ||v| | pseudo Netscape status bar | - fixed status area The scrollable area is actually about 3-4 times larger than the viewable area. The pseudo Netscape button and status bars are all part of a group which sits in front of the scrollable page group, providing a 'frame' for the page. Whenever I try editing the page group all I can see is a fixed area which is hard to manipulate so I can extend its length and include additional elements such as fields, buttons, etc. I can scroll to the top of my 'page', but whenever I try scrolling to the bottom, I always end up with some of the group missing (and not just the bit obscured by the bottom status bar). Anyone able to suggest the scripting necessary to get the group to scroll within a zone like this and how I can easily edit an oversize group? Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Detecting ClickChar?
I'm trying to implement a simulation of a system that displays HTML information with hot links. However, the tricky 'extra' is the fact that each single word/phrase hot link is actually treated as two halves with a click on the first half of a hot word taking you backwards and a click on the second half taking you forwards! The problem I'm having is that I can't easily work out which half of a hot word the user has clicked into. I can get the ClickText() for the whole word and the ClickChunk() tells me the chars of the whole word. The ClickLoc() gives me a coordinate pair, but I can't see how to relate this to the characters in the hot word. What makes life difficult is the fact that the HTML has variable size text as well as some mixed plain and bold text. I tried splitting a single word into two separate words and making them individual hot words, but came up with the problem of having to make them look like a single word whilst behaving as if there's some character separating them. Anyone got any good ideas for this? Also, once I've detected a hot word, I need to jump to another line within the field. How do I reliably reposition a field with variable height lines on a line boundary? I tried adding the textHeight of all lines from top to required line, multiplying the total by 4/3 and then setting the vScroll accordingly. Unfortunately, this isn't reliable, especially if there is a blank line as this returns an empty textHeight. Any ideas for this? Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Detecting ClickChar?
Hi Peter, Try the mouseCharChunk - in theory there's room for it to not work every time, but in practical terms it'll probably do the job consistently and well. The mouseCharChunk will tell you what char of a word has the mouse hovering over it at a given moment. With execution speeds being what they are, it'll probably work fine. Hi Phil Thanks for the tip - that's sorted out my problem of detecting the actual character clicked on. Any ideas for the scrolling/positioning problem? Also, once I've detected a hot word, I need to jump to another line within the field. How do I reliably reposition a field with variable height lines on a line boundary? I tried adding the textHeight of all lines from top to required line, multiplying the total by 4/3 and then setting the vScroll accordingly. Unfortunately, this isn't reliable, especially if there is a blank line as this returns an empty textHeight. Thanks again, Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Detecting ClickChar?
Use the formattedHeight function to determine how far down you need to go. You can ask for the formattedHeight of a chunk of text, e.g.: the formattedHeight of line 1 to 60 of fld 1 Note that selecting the text by script will also scroll the field. (If you have any trouble putting together a script that scrolls exactly as you want with formattedHeight, please let me know: we've got one "somewhere".) Regards, Kevin I managed to get the effect I anted using the very inelegant approach of cloning the field, throwing away the bottom part and measuring the height of the remaining lines! The script is as follows: on gotoLine theLine,theField lock screen if there is a field "Scratch" then delete field "Scratch" clone field theField set the name of field id (word 3 of it) to "Scratch" delete line theLine-2 to -1 of field "Scratch" put the formattedHeight of field "Scratch" into thePosn hide field "Scratch" set the vScroll of field theField to thePosn choose browse tool unlock screen end gotoLine Not very clever, but it works! Any suggestions for something more elegant would be greatly appreciated. Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Detecting ClickChar?
On 29/11/99 4:08 pm, Peter Reid at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This fails (I'm using MC 2.2.5 on a Mac) with an error message saying "bad text attributes, can't get object attributes" which implies that the function doesn't work with a text chunk! I tried this with: put the formattedHeight of line 1 to 31 of field doctext1 - this works in MC 2.3B2! Note that selecting the text by script will also scroll the field. (If you have any trouble putting together a script that scrolls exactly as you want with formattedHeight, please let me know: we've got one "somewhere".) I tried "select line theLine of field theField" and it selected it ok but didn't cause any scrolling or realignment?! - this realigns the field but with the selected line at the bottom of the viewable field, whereas the method above would allow the realignment to leave the wanted line at the top of the field Can you try all of this in MC 2.3B2 (I can't even remember how 2.2.5 worked now)? Unfortunately, this work is for the client who has 2.2.5 only and won't upgrade to 2.3B2! Best regards Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
False Licence Limit Error Message?
Hi I'm developing a CBT package in MetaCard 2.2.5 using both MacOS 8.6 Win 98 for the development. When I run my stack from the development environment, it starts up without any problem. However, when I run the stack by double-clicking I get a "licence limit exceeded" error message. I have a licence which I use on the Mac or Win 98 as necessary and I haven't had this problem before. What is probably significant is what I'm trying to do at start up. Within the preOpenStack handler I read a text file containing various parameters and then build an initialisation script that sets up various global values from the information read from the control file. The licence limit warning appears when my stack attempts to "do" the set up script it has constructed. I've tried moving my initialisation code from the preOpenStack handler into the openStack handler. I've also tried making the stack start up and open the message box for me to type in the name of the init handler. In all cases, the licence limit message appears as soon as my stack tries "do"ing the setup script. It seems that the "do" command only allows long scripts (over 10 lines) when running in the development environment?! Anyone help here?!! Best regards Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: False Licence Limit Error Message?
I've found a solution, I build the script and then execute it a line
at a time using the following handler:
on doScript theScript
repeat with i = 1 to number of lines in theScript
do line i of theScript
end repeat
end doScript
In case anyone is interested the following is the script I use to set
up the stack parameters:
on getParams
global gProgPath, gProgName, gProgVersion
if word 2 of the environment is "Development" then
# developer mode uploads control params from control file into
custom property:
put gProgPath "control.txt" into controlFile # gProgPath is
path of this stack
if there is a file controlFile then
open file controlFile
read from file controlFile until eof
close file controlFile
set the ControlParams of this stack to it
end if
end if
# always actually get params from custom property:
put the ControlParams of this stack into ctrlParams
put empty into makeParamsScript
set itemDelimiter to "="
repeat with i = 1 to number of lines in ctrlParams
put line i of ctrlParams into paramLine
if first char of paramLine ";" and paramLine is not empty then
put item 1 of paramLine into theParam
put item 2 of paramLine into theValue
put "global " theParam ";" after makeParamScript
put "put " quote theValue quote " into " \
theParam return after makeParamScript
end if
end repeat
set itemDelimiter to comma
if makeParamScript is not empty then
doScript makeParamScript
end if
if word 2 of the environment is "Development" then
set the title of this stack to gProgName gProgVersion
end if
end getParams
This allows me to use a control file ('control.txt') in the
development environment that loads its details into a custom stack
property called "ControlParams". Whenever the stack is run outside
of the development environment, it reads the control params from this
custom property instead of the control file itself. The control file
reading element of the script ignores blank lines and lines beginning
with ";". An example control file contents is as follows:
; Control Params for CBT
gProgName=On-line Training Package
gProgVersion=v0.1
gProgDate=23 Nov 1999
gProgAuthor=Peter Reid
; Upload directories (all relative to stack directory):
gGenUploadsDir=Uploads
; File names (files found in Uploads directory):
gDescripFile=description.txt
gFaqFile=faq.txt
; Password for access to admin features:
gAdminPwd=LetMeIn
gToolTipDelayMilliSec=750
Sorry to have bothered people, I hope the above proves of interest.
Best regards
Peter
Peter Reid
Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK
Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Auto-Configuring Netscape for MetaCard Helper?
Kevin Miller wrote: ---snip--- My other suggestion is that you consider building a standalone with a single stack that itself loads some stack in a URL somewhere instead. Users can download that and run it, and it will then open the door to any content you wish to provide (the stack it loads from the URL can itself load anything it likes, present a MC based "home page" or whatever). No configuration required. That's how I transfer stacks to my current client group - I sent each interested party (in a couple of different states) a small .sit file that contained a stack downloader. When they open it, it refreshes its "available files" list by retrieving a directory list from a specific directory in my web space (and then removing references to any other directories prior to displaying). Works like a charm; some of my people are quite "technologically challenged" and don't know how to manage email attachments, and certainly don't know what a MIME type is or does. So the little downloader stack enables them to bypass all the "complexities" and simply get what they want. If anyone is interested, I'll make it available as a simple example (after I alter it slightly to "protect the innocent"). Phil Sounds a neat approach which I'd be very interested in for other projects. However, I definitely couldn't use it with the current project! Best regards Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Custom Cursor Problems
I tried MC 2.3B1 and whilst this does support painting, it also disrupts my current project. For example, I simulate the use of Netscape on an intranet and in one example a pseudo Netscape frame border displays nicely in MC 2.2.5 but is transparent in MC 2.3B1! Sounds like a bug, or at least an incompatibility. You should send in a bug report to [EMAIL PROTECTED], including your stack (or a subset of it) that shows the problem if possible. Tricky, the screens involved contain very sensitive information which I can't show anyone. Unfortunately I'm on a very tight deadline and so don't have time at present to make a 'neutral' version that I can distribute and that will demonstrate the bug. I'll try to find time to do so once the dust has settled on this project. To be honest, trying to paint over a tiny cursor design using the paint tools (in MC 2.3B1) without any form of zoom is rather torturous to say the least! That's why it has one: control-click (command-click on MacOS) opens a magnifier window. Ah - I couldn't find a reference to that in the help index - I tried searching for 'zoom' an 'magnify' but got no hits and so assumed the feature was missing! Is there no way of preparing an external image prior to importing that would ensure the right use of black white? I have a fairly comprehensive set of graphics tools for Mac PC, surely something can be done without having to 'paint' over the cursor designs?? It's possible, just not easy. Most graphics packages fill the entire 256 color colormap in a GIF image with bogus colors. You can tell if yours does this with "put the colors of image 1" after importing an image. If the result is three lines long (0,0,0 and 255,255,255 and some other color that's transparent), you've got a image that will work as a cursor. Otherwise, you'll have to paint on the image to enable MetaCard's built-in color counting system to digest the colormap down to what is actually required. OK, thanks for the tip, I'll take a look. GraphicConverter on the Mac is pretty good with colour maps and I have several other tools I could try, so I'll do some experimenting. Regards, Scott Best regards Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Custom Cursor Problems
Hi I'm trying to use custom cursors and I'm struggling with how to set these up correctly. For example, when I mouseDown over a particular object I'd like to cursor to change to a different design and stay that way until the user does a mouseUp. I have designed black white cursors and I might use a script such as the following on mouseDown lock cursor set the cursor to the id of image "NewCursor" end mouseDown on mouseUp unlock cursor end mouseUp This works fine except I can't get the cursor to look correct unless I invert the colours, i.e. black to white and vice versa. Is this because the mouse is Down and MC or the OS is causing an inversion? What are the rules for designing and applying custom cursors, in particular: - what sizes can they be? (for Mac Win cross-platform) - what colours should be used? (black, white, transparent?) - what file format should be used? (e.g. GIF with transparent colour for edges?) Thanks for any help Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Custom Cursor Problems
What are the rules for designing and applying custom cursors, in particular: - what sizes can they be? (for Mac Win cross-platform) To be cross-platform, use 16x16. - what colours should be used? (black, white, transparent?) - what file format should be used? (e.g. GIF with transparent colour for edges?) Black and white, with a single transparent color, GIF is OK. See the recent posts on this subject (they cover painting into the image in MetaCard after its been imported to get it into MC's internal file format). Regards, Kevin Thanks for the reply. I'm still using MC 2.2.5 for my current development work and this doesn't support painting on Mac or Win (which are what I have available). I tend to develop as much as possible on the Mac then tweak things on the Win system. I tried MC 2.3B1 and whilst this does support painting, it also disrupts my current project. For example, I simulate the use of Netscape on an intranet and in one example a pseudo Netscape frame border displays nicely in MC 2.2.5 but is transparent in MC 2.3B1! Also, I'm not keen on using a Beta version of a product to deliver my current project to my customers, which is why I'd rather stick with MC 2.2.5 until I know MC 2.3 is solid and I have the time to deal with odd effects like the one above. To be honest, trying to paint over a tiny cursor design using the paint tools (in MC 2.3B1) without any form of zoom is rather torturous to say the least! Is there no way of preparing an external image prior to importing that would ensure the right use of black white? I have a fairly comprehensive set of graphics tools for Mac PC, surely something can be done without having to 'paint' over the cursor designs?? Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Auto-Configuring Netscape for MetaCard Helper?
Hi I'm trying to write an installer script that will - install the MetaCard Player on a Win NT 4 system - set up the Win NT Registry for *.mc files - configure Netscape Communicator 4.5 to see mc.exe as the helper app - configure Netscape to "open" *.mc downloads without prompting the user each time as whether they want to 'save' or 'open' such files Does anyone know how I can achieve the Netscape bits from an installer script written in MC? Also, can I check which Registry settings I'll need to set up so that Windows will know what an *.mc file is, it's icon and the default app (mc.exe) to launch with. Thanks for any help. Best regards Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: What No 'Copy File'?
Don't know why put url didn't work, perhaps you need both read and write privileges with it. The old way of reading and writing does work however: put "c:/metacard/mc.exe" into source put "c:/metacard/newmc.exe" into dest open file source for binary read open file dest for binary write read from file source until eof write it to file dest close file source close file dest regards, Tuviah Snyder It would seem more efficient to make a copy of mc.exe (called, say, mc.bup) as a separate file, and then use: put url "binfile:mc.bup" into url "binfile:c:/metacard player/mc.exe" in the installer. As the file mc.exe is needed to run the installer, this adds no overhead. That way, -- Regarding Micro$loth: "Neither shall the Evil Empire dwell with thee" (Job) John R. Vokey Hi Tuviah John Thanks for the additional suggestions - it looks like yet more "ways to skin a cat"! In the end I settled on the inclusion of a compressed copy of mc.exe as a property of my installer stack (as suggested by Dave Cragg). The steps I've taken to producing a self-installing app based on distributing the MC player + a stack are as follows: 1) load compressed versions of "mc.exe", "mctools.mc" and "myapp.mc" into user-defined properties of my "installer.mc" 2) use WinZip to build a Zip file (myapp.zip) containing: - "installer.mc" - "mc.exe" - "mctools.mc" 3) use WinZip add-on utility to make an EXE that: - converts "myapp.zip" into "myapp.exe" - specifies the executable command: "mc installer.mc" within "myapp.exe" To install my application, the user simply double-clicks "myapp.exe" and this does the following: a) "installer.mc", "mc.exe" and "mctools.mc" are unzipped into a temp folder inside the current Windows Temp folder (the last two are used simple to run the installer itself) b) "mc installer.mc" is executed, which does the following: - creates folder "C:\MetaCard Player" (if it doesn't already exist) - creates folder "C:\MyApp" - decompresses a copy of "mc.exe" into "C:\MetaCard Player" - decompresses a copy of "mctools.mc" into "C:\MetaCard Player" - decompresses a copy of "myapp.mc" into "C:\MyApp" - sets up Win Registry entry for "*.mc" files c) all temp files are removed from Windows Temp folder I'll have a think about generalising my approach and then offer it to this list for anyone who's interested. Thanks again for all the input on this one! Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Scripting the Mouse
Hi I'm trying to build a CBT package for a target program. In the CBT package I move the mouse over a simulated screen of the target program as if the user were actually controlling the real program. I've got the mouse moving OK and I get the mouse to pause over screen objects (using 'wait x secs'). However, during the wait pause, the tooltip doesn't appear even though the mouse is over an object. It seems that the object under the mouse doesn't receive the mouseEnter during the wait. If I move the mouse and leave it over an object the tooltip appears and the object can respond to the mouseEnter (changing it's image for example as the mouse hovers over it). Obviously I can send mouseEnter and mouseLeave messages, but I wondered whether there was any message I could send to MetaCard (a bit like 'exit to System' in SuperCard?) that would allow objects user the mouse to respond as if the mouse were under user control. This would make it a lot easier to script pseudo-user control. Thanks for any ideas. Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Scripting the Mouse
I'm trying to build a CBT package for a target program. In the CBT package I move the mouse over a simulated screen of the target program as if the user were actually controlling the real program. I've got the mouse moving OK and I get the mouse to pause over screen objects (using 'wait x secs'). However, during the wait pause, the tooltip doesn't appear even though the mouse is over an object. It Hi Peter, Use the send command. Here is an example: Create two buttons side by side. In the right hand button put a mouseEnter handler that does something e.g beeps. Also, set a toolTip on this button. In the left hand button put the following script. Note that the script does pause the mouse over the right hand button to allow the toolTip to show. However, this is the same when the mouse is under user control. local lCounter, lMessageId on mouseUp put empty into lCounter moveMouse end mouseUp on moveMouse if lCounter 400 then set the screenMouseLoc to item 1 of the screenMouseLoc + 1, item 2 of\ the screenMouseLoc send moveMouse to me in 5 milliseconds put the result into lMessageId add 1 to lCounter else cancel lMessageId send "doNextStage" to me in 2 seconds end if end moveMouse on doNextStage mouseUp -- don't actually do this or you'll go on forever! end doNextStage Of course, to stop the mouse moving you will have to run the following in the message box: repeat for each line l in the pendingmessages cancel item 1 of l end repeat For more information on the send command, check out the "Using the Send Command" article on our website: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/index.htm HTH, Cheers, Alan Thanks for the advice - it looks like something similar I did in SuperCard in the past! Regards Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
What No 'Copy File'?
I'm trying to write a small installer stack for Windows deployment. The aim is to build a self-expander using the WinZip utility. This allows you to include a command that will be executed once files have been copied to the default temp directory. Such self-expanders do the following: 1) unpack all contained files into the temp directory (as defined by $TEMP) 2) execute specified setup command line (e.g. "mc installer.mc") 3) delete all the unpacked files from the temp directory For a variety of reasons, I want to distribute the MC player and *.mc files rather than standalone *.exe files. What I hope to achieve is an installer stack that does the following: 1) copy my app files to a new directory "C:\MyApp" say 2) copy MC player files to a new directory "C:\MetaCard Player" say 3) set up the Windows Registry keys to recognise *.mc files as MetaCard stacks Given that I need to run the temp directory copy of MC to execute my installer stack, I can't use the 'rename' command' to "move" the player from the temp directory to its intended location (as the file is in use at the time). I had hoped to 'copy' the MC player and mctools.mc from the temp directory into a "C:\MetaCard Player" directory. However, I can't find a 'copy file' command?! It seems I can create files, delete them, move/rename them, but I can't copy them. Any bright ideas, or am I missing the obvious!? Thanks Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Some Button Questions
Hi I'm developing an app for Mac Win that will be used on laptops where users want the option to use keyboard control as well as mouse control. I have some questions about button options: 1) On Win when a button is the focus object it is highlighted with a rectangle so you can see which button will activate as you tab across a set of buttons. On the Mac there's no visible indication of current button - can this be made consistent with the Win version? 2) Can a shortcut character be set as part of the label of a button so the user can ALT-x (Win) or CMD-x (Mac) instead of mouse clicking? Thanks for any help. Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Non-appearing Graphics (sometimes!)
Hi I'm developing a Mac Win app and I've put a backdrop graphic into a common background (a bit like a background graphic in a Web browser). Initially, I id this using MC under Win 98. The graphic showed fine on my Win 98 laptop, but not on another Win 98 laptop or another Win 95 laptop. Furthermore, it wouldn't display on my Mac either! Then I moved to MC under MacOS, removed the graphic and re-imported it. Now it shows fine under MacOS and on my Win 98 laptop. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the other laptops, but need to send their owners my latest version without knowing whether the backdrop graphic will now display OK?? The backdrop file was prepared using PaintShop Pro 6 under Win 98 as a GIF file limited to the Web-safe colours (216). Anyone got any ideas why I'm having this problem? Thanks. Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Non-appearing Graphics (sometimes!)
I discovered the "File" "Import" "Take Snapshot" to be the easiest way to get images into MetaCard. Basically keep the paint app open and just "snap paste" into MetaCard...I guess I just have an aversion to saving, naming and managing numerous image files. I have built projects originating on the Mac, further developed on the PC and finally demonstrated on a Unix box with no graphics problems whatsoever. In fact, I carelessly didn't even pay attention to my monitor setting - I was running in 16 bit color...and luckily it still looked the same at 256. As an asidethe only hitch was converting Arial-Helvetica fonts to the Unix based equivalent. Its easy to globally change the font, but if you have grouped or nested groups it gets a little tedious. It would be nice if there was a script that would check the platform you are running on and use the appropriate font mapping. Regards, Blair Thanks for the feedback - some useful tips! I found the problem in the end - I had a file link to an external file instead of an embedded image! Regards, Peter ---- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Showing Imported Styled Text in a Field?
I think it does have a simple HTML parser! In addition to getting the htmltext of a field you may also set the htmltext of a field. regards, Tuviah Snyder Diskotek Custom Application Development SuperCard/HyperCard Conversion at a low price Thanks for the tip. It does work after a fashion but is a bit too crude for my purposes. I get additional blank lines where I don't want them. Also, I was hoping to write some on-line help using HTML with internal hypertext links to different sections. However, such links aren't preserved (converted into MC equivalent). If I could have used an external HTML file, then it would be easy for me to issue updated help files etc. that could be imported into MC fields. Thanks anyway. Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Graphic/Icon Problems with MC Win
Hi I'm developing an app using both Mac and Win 98 MetaCard. In order to try to avoid any colour or graphic problems, I'm sticking with the Web-safe palette of 216 colours for all my graphics (for images and icons). In addition, I regularly check the stack on both a G3 PowerMac running MacOS 8.6 and a P-266 MMX laptop running Win 98. Occasionally, I try the stack under Win 95C running under Virtual PC 2.1.3 on my PowerMac. Despite the above approach I've now tried delivering my MC stack to two different users (1st using P-III 350 desktop with Win 98, 2nd using P-II 350 laptop with Win 98) and both are having problems with button icons. The first can't see anything of the button icons (such buttons are invisible) and the second has buttons whose icons are just grey boxes. I cannot reproduce the problem as all my testing under the three different environments available to me work fine! Any suggestions as to how I can solve this problem and avoid similar problems in future? Thanks Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Graphic/Icon Problems with MC Win
Is it possible that the copied images have different IDs than the originals? If so, the button icon IDs may be set to the IDs of the originals, so they still wouldn't be displayed as icons outside the dev environment. Food for thought. Phil Phil, Thanks for the thought. What's puzzling is that when I test my stack I'm careful to do it through a player, i.e. with a copy the MetaCard program and mctools.mc only, no other supporting files. I then send the same files together with my stack to my users and it doesn't work for them!? It has a certain familiar ring to previous problems I've had with both an earlier version of Visual Basic (v3) and various versions of HyperStudio. These turned out to be related to the large variety and variability of Windows display drivers. The solution that has worked in the case of HyperStudio was to install DirectX (the free MS games multimedia support for Windows). This seems to make the display system better behaved (more standard). I've suggested this same course of action to my MetaCard stack users but haven't had a response from them yet as whether it solved the problem. Regards, Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Showing Imported Styled Text in a Field?
Hi Is there some simple way to import styled text into a MetaCard field? I'd like to have external help files etc. constructed in HTML or RTF which can be imported and displayed through MetaCard windows. I see that MC can generate HTML from fields, but I can't see how it could work the other way round (short of writing an HTML parser!). Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks, Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Script Control of Tabs
Hi MetaCarders I'm new to MetaCard (but not to Super/HyperCard ToolBook), so the following question might be obvious! I'd like to be able to select the tab of a tabbed button under script control. For example, I might like to ensure that a particular tab is seen when the user opens the card with the tabbed button on it. Also, I might want to prevent access to certain tabs depending on the state or access permissions. I can't find any way to set the active tab within a script. Any ideas please? Cheers Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Re: Script Control of Tabs
On Wednesday, Oct 6 1999, Peter Reid wrote: Hi MetaCarders I'm new to MetaCard (but not to Super/HyperCard ToolBook), so the following question might be obvious! I'd like to be able to select the tab of a tabbed button under script control. For example, I might like to ensure that a particular tab is seen when the user opens the card with the tabbed button on it. Also, I might want to prevent access to certain tabs depending on the state or access permissions. I can't find any way to set the active tab within a script. Any ideas please? set the menuHistory of btn "tabbed button" to 1 That will even send the appropriate menuPick message. Regards, Kevin Just the job! Thanks for the help. Regards, Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
MC 2.3 stacks unreadable by MC 2.2.5?
I see in the ReadMe for MC 2.3B2 that once a stack has been saved from MC 2.3, it can't be opened and used within MC 2.2.5. I am having to use MC Player 2.2.5 (Win NT) with a customer - they've only just installed it across their network ready for delivery of a series of CBT courses as MC stacks. However, I need to create cursor designs and (as recent emails on the list testify) I really need to use MC 2.3 to do it as only this version supports the necessary painting features. For the purposes of this particular client, all I really need from MC 2.3 is the painting features. Is it possible to use MC 2.3 to create a dummy cursor design stack from which I can then copy and paste properly formed cursor graphics into an MC 2.2.5 stack? Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
RE: Aborting Animations
Peter, I have been developing CBT that does all of the same stuff, with the exception of the voice-overs. At first, each animation ran without stopping, but then (with Scott Kevin's patient help) I learned how to break the animations up into small chunks using the "send" command, which allowed me to catch a user keypress (I use the Esc key) to stop the demo. This also requires keeping track of the messages that are being sent, so you can cancel the pending messages when the user presses Esc. I was tempted to post some of the code, but when I looked at it, it seemed awfully spaghetti-like, with a lot of interconnecting handlers, and I thought you might be better off trying to implement these strategies within the context of your own existing code rather than trying to ape mine. But if you find yourself stuck, I will be happy to post some samples to help get you on the right track. Regards, Marni Hi Marni Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. I've used a very similar approach with SuperCard in the past and was considering the same idea with MetaCard. However, the playback of sound is a particular problem as I do want the user to be able to interrupt this if possible and here your suggested technique wouldn't help. This is why I went the route that I did. Best regards Peter -------- Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
Video Format Support in MC 2.3?
I was very pleased to see that MC 2.3 supports QuickTime on Win and Mac platforms, but wondered whether this is in addition to any native format such as AVI for video and WAV for sound? Whilst I'd like to use QuickTime across platforms, some customers (such as the ones I'm working with at the moment) don't and won't have QuickTime, only pure Microsoft stuff, hence my interest in both AVI and WA formats. So, does MC 2.3 give me both QT and AVI/WAV? Best regards Peter Peter Reid Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)1509 264986 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
