(scenario omitted)
> However, if I don't want this stack to be modal, but want to user to be
> able to Edit/Modify any number of do-hickeys at the same time, MetaCard
> seems ill-suited for this task, and the problem isn't entirely with the
> licensing.
(details omitted)
> clone stack "blah"
> set the name of stack "Copy of blah" to "blah - 1"
> set the mainStack of stack "blah - 1" to "my main stack"
> topLevel "blah"
>
> Basically, although this approach kinda works, I've had lots of
> problems with it.
>
> I was wondering if any one might have a better/alternate solution. I'm
> aware that I could pre-create a bunch of Edit/Modify stacks, and use
> them instead of always cloning and deleting, but this has a significant
> effect on the size of the stack file, and does result in the operation
> (Modify) guaranteed not to work in certain circumstances.
>
> Any suggestions are welcome,
I agree that this isn't one of MetaCard's strong points. On the other
hand, the ability to have multiple "property sheets" open at the same
time is extremely rare in commercial applications. In fact, I can't
even think of a single example. Though this may be just a toolkit
design limitation, it could very well be that this is just a poor
user-interface technique.
Maybe instead of trying to open multiple windows open, you could just
make the editor a palette (modeless dialog), and update the contents
of that palette dynamically when the user picks from the list of
do-hickeys. This provides an easy way to compare the properties of
objects, and you could even provide a "multiple" mode where the user
could select multiple do-hickeys and modify them all at once by
changing the settings in the palette.
I agree, however, that it would be nice to be able to have better
control over the behavior of the new stack when you clone one. This
is already on the feature-request list, but I'll see if it's priority
can be bumped up. Another feature that you might be able to use would
be the ability to have the same stack open to multiple cards in
different windows at the same time. With this feature you wouldn't
clone the stack, but rather create a new card for the each new
do-hickey you want to edit, which gets around both the naming and
licensing problems you're having. This feature is also on the
feature-request list, and already has a relatively high priority.
> -Earle
>
>
> --
> Earle Lowe
> emlowe@fsa.ca
> FSA Corporation
> Performance and system software for UNIX networks.
-- *********************************************************************** * Scott Raney 303-447-3936 Remember: the better you look, * * raney@metacard.com the more you'll see -- Lidia * ***********************************************************************