Order of closing stacks and files

[Kay Tate]

I have a main stack with (so far) 7 substacks. The main stack and each of the substacks is in a separate file because I need to manage each of those data sets independently.

I have seemingly randomly lost changes I made to the substacks while I was developing them. I thought I was very careful to do Saves often. I am now paranoid that as I put them into production, I will enter data into them that I need to keep, and that I will lose it.

Is there documentation on a required order in which to save substacks and the main stack so that I ensure something doesn't overwrite something I think I have saved?

If I save a substack, do I also need also to save the main stack every time?

If I have changes to two different substacks and I save one of them and the main stack, will I lose changes in the other substack? This is the kind of thing I am suspicious of.

Does the development team work with substacks in separate files? Or am I in a rather uncharted area?

Thanks.
-Kay T.

[Mark]

Hi Kay,

Probably, you have a script somewhere, that closes and re-opens a stack file or possibly you did this manually at some point. It happens to me too that I lose some changes, once in a while. Usually, it is because I wasn't careful enough while testing my scripts. I haven't been able to prove that Revolution is consistently not saving my work.

When you save a substack, the entire stackfile is saved, including all other substacks and the mainstack of that stackfile. Substacks of other mainstacks in other stack files are not saved.

Sure, you can have substacks in different files, but then they would also have mainstacks. Or perhaps you mean that you want to use two mainstacks and make them work together. You can do that in several ways, e.g. by using backscripts or frontscripts or by putting a stack in use (start using).

You can also create a new stack (and stackfile) and make the other two stacks stackfiles of the new stack. There is a special pane for this in the property inspector of stacks.

I don't think there is a reason to keep "substacks" in separate files. I'd just make sure that your own scripts don't close any stacks without saving them and I'd try to be more careful during development.

Best,

Mark

[Kay Tate]

I don't think there is a reason to keep "substacks" in separate files.

Thanks, Mark for your advice. I have all of the substacks attached to a single "replacement Home" card as an anchor and main stack. It looks like the original HyperCard Home stack except that the stack icons have been replaced for my specific tool stacks. Since the stacks I use vary by the activities of the day, this anchor model with a selection of available tools works well for me.

In looking at some of the other forum posts, I thought I should keep separate files for the historical substacks because I have thousands of cards in these stacks. My journals go back to 1993. Even in HyperCard, I was in the habit of making six month stacks for my journal and my notebook and having the current ones on the front of the Home card, then having icons for the previous stacks by date on later pages in the Home card stack. If I needed to search previous stacks for text strings, I could open them and do so. I haven't converted this historical information to Revolution yet, but that is my next project as soon as I get all of my new tool stacks working and have identified all of the needed changes.

Does this sound more sensible? If so, it's easier maintain the same model in Revolution I am accustomed to with HC. It fits my daily work organization. However, in reimplementing my system, I do appreciate optimization suggestions, so I try to keep an open mind.

Thanks,
-Kay T.