> 1. When, if ever, is it 'allowable' to access a property without using
No improvement on Mark's answer is necessary, so I'll leave it there.
> 2. I can't find a way to construct a movie without using at least one
> global variable
There is a way, but it may or may not work in your situation. When you
instantiate your HQ object, you're probably doing something like this:
-- Movie script
global HQ
HQ = new( script "HQ" )
And your HQ parent's 'new' handler does this:
-- HQ Parent
on new me
-- whatever
return me
end
That is, 'new' is returning an obj pointer, and you're storing it in HQ.
Instead, you can instantiate the object this way:
init script "HQ" <-note the conspicuous lack of assigning a global
You replace the parent script's 'new' handler with 'init' (or other custom
handler), and it doesn't need to 'return me' before exiting. Then, each
time you would've otherwise communcated with HQ like this,
HQ.speechMngr.speak( "words..." )
do this instead:
(script "HQ").speechMngr.speak( "words..." )
The point is, through the use of the 'script' keyword, you can communicate
directly with a (pseudo?) instance of the script, instead of storing its
pointer in a global. I've used it for years when occasion called, without
incident.
The caveat is that since you're not storing HQ as a global, it doesn't have
global scope. It works throughout the life of the .dir, but when you go to
another movie, its memory is released. It's a way to achieve movie-scope
objects, really (in addition to the obvious local & global). So if your
program needs to change between several movies, you'll need at least one
global after all.
Hope this helps
Rob
/*********************************
* Rob Wingate, Software Human *
* http://www.vingage.com *
* mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *
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