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From: kik@wjh12.harvard.edu (Ken Kreshtool)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: How to visually "disable" a button?
Keywords: gray disable
Message-ID: <598@wjh12.harvard.edu>
Date: 4 May 91 20:16:09 GMT
References: <10793@pogo.WV.TEK.COM> <2641@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: kik@wjh12.UUCP (Ken Kreshtool)
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Lines: 20

Note that the icon editor in HC 2.x makes it pretty easy to "gray" an icon.  So
you might create a second button with a grayed image of the first, and, as
others have posted, hide the first button and show the grayed one.

To create the grayed icon, create a copy of the real button to serve as the
disabled one (and change its script appropriately).  Get your way to the dialog
where you assign icons, and choose to Edit... this one's icon. This opens up
the icon editor.  In the File menu, choose "Duplicate Icon" and in the Special
menu, choose "Gray".  If you like what you see, you're done!  (Sometimes you
need to do some touching up.)

You should duplicate before graying; otherwise the original icon gets grayed,
and so appears on both the old and the new buttons.

An advantage to using a button over a picture (I use both) is that you can
write a script for the disabled button, for example to throw up an "answer"
dialog.  Once in a while this is warranted.

Ken Kreshtool
kik@wjh12.harvard.edu