Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!alibaba
From: alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: HyperCard XCMD support ideas
Message-ID: <3176@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 6 May 88 01:30:06 GMT
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg)
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz; CATS
Lines: 32

PUGH@NMFECC.ARPA has suggested that I rename my screen wipe XCMD to visual.
I could then parse the visual arguments to see if they are correct for my
visual effect else pass them. The hitch:

I have to duplicate the complicated parsing and error detectionn that
HyperTalk has built in.

What I want:

HyperCard's XMCD language extenssions should be given more help in parsing
phrases. What is important is to be able to return the same errors that
HyperCard returns for syntax problems. Therefore a call to HyperCard with
an error number is necessary.

I would also hope for a way to have HyperCard automatically condense
arguments to known abbreviations to speed parsing and string checking in
XCMDs. For example, I want HyperCard to automatically remove the "effect"
qualifier from the "visual" command if it senses it. Of course, this
should be a call made by the XCMD requesting the help. There is no sense
in every XCMD being 16+K to parse commands and check syntax errors. If
"wipe" is spelled wrong, then I want to let the user of my XCMD think
that my XCMD is really a part of the language and not a superficial
extension with no useful error response technique.

Any Ideas, thoughts comments?

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