At 7:09 PM -0700 14/8/1999, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>One thing just about everyone could make use of, which is supported well
>in so many dozens of cross-platform apps that it seems a reasonable
>desire to include it in MC:
>
>Printing a single block of styled text. Add support for a single-line
>header and footer, and as long as the page breaks fall where they should
>I suspect this would be a godsend for 90% of MC's customers.
>
>This wouldn't solve all printing needs in the world, and folks could use
>existing methods for those, but if this were available in the MetaCard
>package as it is in HyperCard and SuperCard, it would take care of the
>most common need and the hardest to implement in scripting.
While I wouldn't say no to such a feature, I wonder how many people's
printing needs it would satisfy. Such is the nature of commercial
clients that nothing short of full page layout facilities sometimes
seems to be required. :( It only needs a request for a graphic logo
or a multi-lined header or a different title header to make this
feature "useful but unused".
On the other hand, the card/stack metaphor with the ability to place
and manipulate text and graphic objects anywhere seems "natural" for
printing. The current drawback is the ability to easily make text
calculations for the visible text in a field. If this were made
easier (something like a visibleChunk property, perhaps) a whole
range of printing possibilities would be available.
The card-based approach makes the "single styled text block" feature
a little more difficul to set up initially. It would need its own
stack. (But it would only have to be done once.) But the benefit is
the ability to satisfy a wider range range of printing requests.
Of course, more headaches would be saved if we could only persuade
clients that they don't really need printing. :)
Cheers
Dave Cragg
