Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!uwm.edu!bionet!apple!bc
From: bc@Apple.COM (bill coderre)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: What really happens when hypercard is launched?
Message-ID: <43115@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 18 Jul 90 19:46:36 GMT
References: <1277@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Organization: Consultant to That Computer Company
Lines: 40

Edward Celarier is annoyed
|I cannot find any documentation which states clearly and authoritatively
|what happens when hypercard is launched.  It is clear that its primary
|order of business is to show a card to the user, so he has something
|to look at while other things are going on.  I thought I might subvert
|the getHomeInfo message in the stack script, but apparently that message
|(who sends it?) doesn't go that far in the hierarchy.  Somehow an 
|on Idle handler seems inelegant and inappropriate (the user will do more
|than fill in a single field!).
|Also:  Why is there no definitive documentation on hypercard function,
|hypertext syntax, and so on?  Even Goodman, for all its weight, is 
|sparse!

The problem is that when Hypercard is launched, the order of messages
is somewhat backward of what some people would expect:

openStack, openBackground, openCard, startup

Since startup usually involves a covert sortie to the home stack to
read fields and set things, any text field that you might have
selected will get unselected.

You might consider trapping startup yourself, but that will disable
the home card's setup routines. So perhaps the best action to take is
to do something like:

on startup
  global hackfoo
  if hackfoo is empty then
    put "flan" into hackfoo
    send startup
    -- do your startup actions here
  else
    -- let the message go to the home stack
    pass startup
  end if
end startup

It's been a while since I did something like this, so please excuse
any typos.