Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bbn!apple!jdevoto
From: jdevoto@Apple.COM (Jeanne A. E. DeVoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Help on password protection
Message-ID: <26927@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 7 Mar 89 22:31:48 GMT
References: <10738@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 43

In article <10738@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> glen@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Glen Rosendale) writes:
[ is making a tutorial system in HyperCard, and wants to 1) launch directly
into the tutorial, and 2) prevent users from quitting to the Finder unless
they have the correct password.]

(I am posting this because it illustrates a general technique others may
find useful.)

When the user chooses a menu item, HyperCard sends a "doMenu" message to
the current card. The message's parameter consists of the text of the menu
item.

Like many HyperCard messages, doMenu can be intercepted by a script before
it is executed by HyperCard. You can set up a script to intercept the "Quit"
item as follows:

  on doMenu theItem
    if theItem is "Quit HyperCard" then
      beep
      ask password "Please type the access password."
      if it is not "the password" then -- or whatever password you want
        beep
        answer "Sorry, you do not have authorization to Quit this stack."
      else
        pass doMenu
      end if
    else
      pass doMenu -- THIS LINE IS VERY IMPORTANT!
    end if
  end doMenu

A few notes about this handler:
 - You must remember to pass doMenu commands other than Quit. If you neglect
to do so, you will lock yourself out of all menu items.
 - You may want to trap doMenu "Open..." as well, since otherwise the user
could go to another stack and Quit from there.

As for your other question: you can set HyperCard as the startup application
in the Finder, then place a command to go to the selected stack in the Home
stack's openStack handler.

jeanne a. e. devoto
jdevoto@apple.com