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From: mandel@vax.anes.tulane.edu (Jeff E Mandel MD MS)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Idle and Hypercard 2.0
Message-ID: <5542@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 2 Jan 91 12:58:22 GMT
References: <22363@well.sf.ca.us>
Sender: news@rex.cs.tulane.edu
Organization: Tulane University School of Medicine
Lines: 22

In article <22363@well.sf.ca.us> wdh@well.sf.ca.us (Bill Hofmann) writes:
>Here's a question, since MacDTS is on (gasp!) vacation.  I have an XCMD
>which sits in a loop waiting for a condition to match or a timer to expire,
>but I'd like other processes *in* Hypercard to get time.  (That is, GNE or
>WNE won't do the trick.)  Should I SendCardMessage(paramPtr, 'idle')?  That
>doesn't seem to work.  Suggestions are welcome.
>

I assume general housekeeping (redrawing windows, etc.) is the main function
for which you would want Idle time; there seems no workaround for this except
to relinquish control from your XCMD and grab it back after the next idle:

on doMyThing
	myXCMD
end doMyThing

on idle
	global IAmWorking
	if IAmWorking then myXCMD
end idle

myXCMD then propoerly sets the global IAmWorking.