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Taller Smarter Text Fields

Voice Card  -  Volume 4  -  John Card Number 23  -  Sat, Jan 28, 1989 9:23 PM







You probably haven't noticed yet, but starting with volume 4, voice card text fields are taller and smarter.

In fact the entire card has been redesigned so that, among other things, the text field is SLIGHTLY taller. You will no longer have to barely scroll the card to see the bottom half of the last line. The design change is subtle, but you can see it by bouncing back and forth between a volume 3 card and a volume 4 card.

Taller, yes, but smarter? A standard Hypercard scrolling text window is not as "smart" as other Macintosh windows because it doesn't know when to hide its scrollbar. You may have noticed that when you resize a window on the desktop, the gray scrollbar will disappear as soon as the window is large enough to display all of its contents. Thus you can tell at a glance whether or not you are seeing all there is to see. Not so with a Hypercard window.

Until now, that is! As part of the Harvesting process, I now test each text window and hide the scrollbars of cards with short messages. From now on, if you see a gray scrollbar to right of the text, you will know there is more text to read. If not, you can jump to the next card without "testing."

(An example of a card without a scrollbar can be seen in Vol 4 John 25.)

This raises an important point: ALWAYS READ YOUR OWN CARDS. Often, when I can supply a brief answer to one of your questions, I will insert an Editor's Note rather than creating an entire reply card. Sometimes when you scroll to the bottom of your own card, you will find that an answer or comment has been added!




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