The Hypertalk Language 1.2

ti. Macintosh. HyperCardTll Script Language Guide The HyperTalkm Language Addison-Wesley Publlshina Company, Inc. Reading, Massachusetts Menlo Park, California New York Don Mills, Ontario Wokingham, England Amsterdam Bonn Sydney Singapore Tokyo Madrid Sanjuan ··~ S APPLE COMPUTER, INC. Copyright C 1988 by-Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording. or otherwise, without prior written permission of Apple Computer, Inc. Printed in the United States Qf America, Apple, the Apple logo, LaserWriter, Macintosh, and SANE are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. APOA, Finder, HyperCard, Hypetl'alk, MultiFinder, and Stackware are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. · MacPaint is a registered trademark of CLARIS Corporation. ITC Avant Garde Gothic, ITC Garamond, and ITC Zapf Dingbats are registered trademarks of International Typeface Corporation. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Miamoft Corporation. POSTSCRIPT •is a registered trademark, and Illustrator is a trademark of Adobe Systems ·incorporated. Varityper is a registered trademark, and vr(i()() is a trademark, of AM International, Inc. Simultaneously published in the United Stares and Canada. ISBN 0-201-17632-7 ABCDEFGHIJ-00-898 Fitst printing. July 1988 Contents Flgur• and tabi.t xv Preface About This Gulde xix What's in th1' book? n Notation conventions nil Chapt.- 1 HyperTalk 8mlcl 1 What is HyperTalk? 2 Objects 2 Buttons and fields 2 Cards, backgrounds, and stacks 3 Mes..ages 4 Saipts 4 Handlers 4 Message handlers 5 Function handlers 5 Where's the script? 6 The script editor 1 Manipulating text 8 Searching and printing 8 Formatting scripts 9 Unelengrh 9 Chapter summary 10 ill Chapter 2 Handling Meaag• 11 The HypetCard environment 12 Sending meMages 12 System meMages 13 Statements as messages 13 Message box messages 14 Messages resulting from commands 14 Receiving meMages 15 Object hierarchy 16 Where messages go 16 Messages to buttons and fields 17 The current hierarchy 18 The target 20 The dynamic path 21 The go command and the dynamic path 22 The send keyword and the dynamic path ·23 Handlers calling handlers 25 Subroutine calls 25 Recursion 26 Using the hierarchy 27 Sharing handlers 27 Intercepting messages 29 Parameter passing 30 Chapter summary 32 Chapter 3 Naming Obf4tcls 33 Object descriptors 34 Object names 35 Object ID numbers 35 Object numbers 36 Special ordinals 37 Object numbers and tab order 37 Special objea descriptors 37 Stack descriptors 38 Naming a stack 39 Combining object descriptors 40 Chapter. summary 40 Iv . Contents ( Chapter 4 Values 41 Soura:!S of values 42 Constants 42 Literals 42 Functions 43 Properties 43 Numbers 44 Standard Apple Numerics Environment 44 Precision 44 Number handling 45 Containers 45 Fields 45 Variables 46 The selection 47 The Message box 48 Comple…