Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!psuvax1!psuvm!cunyvm!ndsuvm1.bitnet!nuapple
From: NUAPPLE@NDSUVM1.BITNET (M. G. Stinnett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: The card that would not die!
Message-ID: <2665NUAPPLE@NDSUVM1>
Date: 3 Aug 89 16:36:02 GMT
References: <113@citycs.UUCP> <9719@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network, Fargo, ND
Lines: 37
DISCLAIMER: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article.

I had a little problem the other day with a card.  It didn't do anything,
but I couldn't kill or delete it, either.

There was a card script:
on openCard
   global name,class
   ask "What is your name?" with "Type your name here"
   ask "What class?" with "Type your class name or number here"
   go next
end openCard

Of course, when you hit the card, it would ask both questions, the go
next.  Useless because tho it asked the questions, it did nothing with
the answers.

But the worst thing was that I couldn't get at the script to change it.
No matter which way I went at it, sending messages, trying to trap the
openCard message, sending messages to the card telling it to delete
itself, it would always pop the two dialogs, go next, and then execute
the message.  Fortunately, I was working on a copy of the stack, so all
the damage I did to the other cards didn't matter.

Finally, out of desperation, I used FEdit to find the "go next" bit on
the disk sector and wrote over it, changing it to "-- next".  This
crude method worked, with one problem.  When I opened the stack in
HyperCard after the mod, the "Can't Modify" box was checked, and would
not allow itself to be unchecked.

I made a copy of the stack, and the copy did not have this feature, so
I was finally able to go in and edit the script of the card, ending two
or three hours of frustration.

Now the question:  Was there a better way?  Could it have been done from
within HyperCard?

--M. G.
who hates to nuts and bolts anything