Thanks Marni,
If Windows standalones can, in fact, be built on a Mac, it will save
me a great deal of trouble, and possibly expense.
Greg
>From: Marni Centor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: RE: Standalone building and data saving
>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 17:17:02 -0500
>MIME-Version: 1.0
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> charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Gregory Lypny [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>> Sent: Monday, November 29, 1999 1:46 PM
>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Subject: Standalone building and data saving
>>
>>
>> Hi List Members,
>>
>> I hope you'll humour me in my asking these two naive questions.
>>
>> The first is on developing MC stacks on the Mac, and
>> then creating
>> standalones for both Macs and Windows. Is my understanding
>> correct that
>> to build a standalone for Windows, I must run the Standalone
>> Builder on a
>> Windows machine?
>
>You could do that, but I think you can also build the Windows standalone on
>your Mac as long as you have copied the Windows engine to your Mac. Then you
>just need to designate the Windows engine as the one to use in building the
>standalone. Mac users, please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>> The second question is about users' ability to save data
>> in fields
>> in standalones. Much of my experience in developing
>> courseware has been
>> with HyperCard, and, if I recall, HyperCard standalones can
>> save data in
>> fields. But I have been following a recent thread on this
>> list where it
>> has been suggested that fields in MC standalones cannot save
>> data. Is
>> this true? When an MC standalone is closed, are the fields
>> effectively
>> "emptied"?
>
>They are emptied of any data that was not already in them when the
>standalone was created.
>
>> I've always viewed the two important functions of
>> fields as
>> displaying and storing data. If the data-storing capability
>> of fields in
>> MC standalones does not exist, then my development of courseware will
>> have to be substantially rethought because a primary function of
>> courseware is that it often has modest database features such as note
>> fields, fields for track user progress, etc.
>
>You cannot save data within a MC standalone, but you can save it in any
>stack that does not have the engine built in. It's very easy to separate
>your data storage stack from your standalone file, because you can make a
>standalone that does nothing but launch the non-standalone stack(s) where
>you want to be able to save data. Once you have launched a standalone,
>Metacard is in memory and can be used to run non-standalone stacks.
>
>I create courseware with MetaCard, and I use my standalone stack to show a
>splash screen animation and then launch a menu stack. The menu stack then
>launches my various courseware stacks. I can track user progress in both the
>menu stack and the individual courseware stacks because they are separate
>from the standalone.
>
>Hope this helps!
>
>Marni
>--
>Marni Centor
>Summit Systems
>22 Cortlandt St.
>New York, NY 10007
>(212) 896-3466
