On Sun, 28 Jan 2001 Richard MacLemale <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Kevin Miller stated:
> > This is just a minor glitch - the only workaround I know of for the moment
> > is to turn off the scrollbar if the text fits.
It's kind of ironic for him to say that since the source of this bug
was a fix for an equally minor problem that he said needed to get
fixed: disabling a field didn't disable the scrollbar in previous
releases.
> Nah, it's not a minor glitch if I have to spend hours figuring out the best
> way to turn off the scrollbar for the HUNDREDS of fields in my project, due
> to go beta shortly. And having a scroll bar magically appear IF the text
> does not fit the field is a user interface violation in my book.
Depends on the style guide: this is actually the recommended design
for Motif. Most of the fields in the MetaTalk Reference work this way
too and we haven't received any comments about this being "wierd".
Most WWW pages work this way too.
> Reason -
> fixed fields (ie without scroll bars) imply that you can only type a limited
> amount of text into an area (at least on the Mac), which of course I do not
> want to imply. And putting a scrollbar complete with draggable handle that
> DOES NOTHING if the text does not extend beyond the height of the field is
> even worse. I myself spend some time trying to drag the handle in the
> scroll bar and wondering why it wouldn't move.
This isn't an issue with proportional scrollbars, so another
workaround would be to set the proportionalThumbs property to true.
Note that this is (finally!) the default on OS X...
> The fact is that anything that makes my program look unprofessional make ME
> look unprofessional. Attention to detail is very important in software
> design. Especially on the Mac, people get used to living in a predefined
> universe of rules, which make it easier to learn new programs. I know my
> customers, and as petty as my complaint sounds, I'm going to have to make
> excuses. And I haven't had to do that before with MetaCard. With
> HyperCard, in the "old" days, yes. Remember explaining to people why they
> couldn't put more than 32K in a field?
>
> Fortunately, I think I can safely step back down to version 2.3.1, which I
> know DOES draw scrollable fields properly. I only hope that the version of
> 2.3.1 that I still have is the FAT binary version, or I'm in trouble.
We can email you that old engine (or any previous release) if you need
them. Just request them at [EMAIL PROTECTED] But first check to
make sure that your ISP will accept big files (4-5MB) via email. Most
do, but some don't.
> What I'm really more pissed about is the fact that somehow I didn't notice
> this bug until the last minute. I should've caught it much, much sooner.
So should we have, and so should Cross Worlds and everyone else that
downloaded any of the gammas of 2.3.2. Next time we're going to be a
little tighter on making changes at the last minute. But I'd also
recommend people be a little bit more diligent about downloading and
using the beta and gamma test releases lest they find themselves in a
position similar to yours!
Regards,
Scott
> :)
> Richard MacLemale
> Instructional Technology Specialist
> James W. Mitchell High School
********************************************************
Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...
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