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From: ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Faster Button
Message-ID: <3179@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 1 Oct 88 16:51:17 GMT
References: <70621@sun.uucp> <1482@pur-phy> <547@uva.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Distribution: comp
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 40

Actually, you can automate the making of buttons to an even greater extent:
you can write a function, which may be passed arguments, to create scripts. Try
something of the form...

on makeButton cardNum, title, n, m
  lock screen
  go card cardNum
  doMenu "New Button"
  put the number of card buttons into ncb
  set name of button ncb to title
  set script of button ncb to bScript(n,m)
  -- probably some more stuff
  choose browse tool
end makeButton

function bScript n, m
  -- say n refers to a line in a global variable 'foo' and m is a factor
  -- that the button will multiply line n of foo by...
  return "on mouseUp" & return & _
  "global foo" & return & _
  "put line" && n && "of foo *" && m && "into message" & return & _
  "end mouseUp"
end bScript

The script returned by bScript(10,30) should look like:

on mouseUp
  global foo
  put line 10 of foo * 30 into message
end mouseUp

...its just a matter of concatentating strings. The only potentially confusing
thing is that you must insert "return" characters in the middle of the script
string with "& return & _" where "_" is the option-return character to
prevent lines from running off right end of editing dialog. Remember also that
the line continuation cannot be used within a quoted string, only between them.
-- 
Nicholas Spies			ns@cat.cmu.edu.arpa
Center for Design of Educational Computing
Carnegie Mellon University