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From: maurits@neon.Stanford.EDU (A. Maurits van der Veen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: How to tell when really idle?
Message-ID: <1991Apr23.144619.16252@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 23 Apr 91 14:46:19 GMT
References: <KENW.91Apr22200900@skyler.arc.ab.ca>
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA
Lines: 37

In article <KENW.91Apr22200900@skyler.arc.ab.ca> kenw@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Ken Wallewein) writes:
>
>  One of the things that's always bugged me about HyperCard is that,
>although it updates most stuff to disk automatically, it won't do the same
>for the current card -- at least, not doing the things I do.  A person can
>loose a lot of text in a hurry if you crash without saving first.
>
>  Does anybody have a better way to address this problem?
>
>Ken Wallewein                                                     A L B E R T A
>kenw@noah.arc.ab.ca  <-- replies (if mailed) here, please       R E S E A R C H
>(403)297-2660                                                     C O U N C I L

I am not sure this would qualify as a better way, but here goes:

Hypercard does update stuff to disk when you move to another card.
So you might have an idle handler that accumulates idle-counts,
and at a certain count just quickly to the next card and back.

Of course, a problem arises if the person is just then typing into a field.
Possible solutions to that:

- reset the idle-count to 0 every time someone types into a field
- when you are going to go to the next card, save the name of the current
  field and the selected position (selectedChunk, I think, might work,
  put you should probably look that up in the manual), and upon your
  return select the same chunk of the same field.

- You would want to lock screen before going to the next card, of course.
- You would reset idle-count to 0 on openCard.

Hope this helps,

Maurits van der Veen
maurits@neon.stanford.edu

-