Thanks to Romano, Sterling, and Joel for the instant enlightenment
Sterling writes:
> NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
> There is always a way not to do strings. :)
<snip>
> I hope this has helped you out. If you have any more questions about
> it, please ask... we all cringe here at REBOL HQ when we see the
> unnecessary use of DO with strings..
Let me show you the depths of my ignorance, which might help
or inspire someone to write a best-downloading how-to on
Blocks and their uses.....
I hate to see a grown man cringe, so I'll close my eyes as I
write the next sentence.....
I almost always build a 'Layout as a string.
Why? Because building one with blocks seems to require
lots of special tricks.
There's a synthetic example below what I mean. It shows in
miniature the sort of things that happen if a 'Layout is made
up of loads of components sourced from different places
(user color choices from one file, screen metric
calculations from elsewhere, list of fields needed from a
CSV file, etc).
As a string, I can do it in moments, and get on with my life.
Blocks just seem too darned difficult in this instance. But, as
I said last time, maybe it's not Rebol. Maybe it's my brain that's
at fault.
Colin
Rebol []
=========================================
;; layout we want to achieve:
;; ========================
Wanted: [across
b: box 99x100 green
Return
c: box 45x33 green + 150.150.150
zz: text "last field"
]
;; Various bits of derived data needed
;; ===================================
MaxBoxWidth: 99
MaxBoxdepth: 100
BoxColor: "Green"
LastField: "zz"
;; A function to do it with strings
;; ================================
makelayout: func [/local lay]
[
lay: join "across "
[ " b: box "
to-pair (MaxBoxWidth MaxBoxDepth)
" "
boxcolor
" return "
" c: box "
to-pair (to-integer MaxBoxWidth / 2
to-integer MaxBoxDepth / 3)
" "
boxcolor
" + 150.150.150 "
lastfield
": text {last field}"
]
return lay
]
;; go do it
;; ========
unview/all
view layout load MakeLayout
=========================================
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