Complex itemDelimiter

[richmond62]

Here's a side effect of my continuing development of my Devawriter Pro software:
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[Klaus]

Let me guess, you scripted:

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...
set itemdel to (CR & "-DO NOT EDIT THIS LINE-" & CR)
...

[richmond62]

Of course, Klaus; you're the man.

[richmond62]

SShot 2022-04-02 at 19.35.41.png (44.48 KiB) Viewed 3978 times

SShot 2022-04-02 at 19.35.55.png (23.7 KiB) Viewed 3978 times

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HOWEVER, as you can see, while the first line using

Code: Select all

set the unicodeText

works well,

the next line goes "all wonky" as it seems impossible to use set with after.

[richmond62]

Aaaaaah, my favourite activity: answering my own posts:

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set the unicodeText of field "XYZ" to the unicodeText of field "ABC"
put (cr & "--Don't Mess Around--" & cr) after fld "XYZ"
set the unicodeText of field "XYZ" to ((the unicodeText of field "XYZ") & (the unicodeText of field "DEF"))

What a headache.

[richmond62]

SShot 2022-04-02 at 20.34.40.png (24.24 KiB) Viewed 3966 times

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Of course, sooner or later, some end-user with sticky fingers is either:

1. Going to edit that line.

2. Delete one or both of the carriage returns.

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Read my next rant "Idiot-proofing a GUI."
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Is there a way to make certain lines in a field ineditable?

[jacque]

The easiest way would be to put the top line into a locked field and the editable text below it in an unlocked one. Then you don't need delimiters.

[richmond62]

While that is a clever idea it will not work in this use-case as the end-user has to be able to edit ALL text before that
funky itemDelimiter, and ALL the text after it: and the itemDelimiter is used to work out where to dump the edited
sections of text once the end-user has finshed editing (i.e into 2 fields).

[jacque]

So unlock the top field too.

[richmond62]

The 'point', as far as there is a point, is for the EDITOR thingy to be a bog-basic single field in a bog-basic substack,
and 95% of the time it only gets the text from one source field in the main monster stack: but this case is the exception.

So, wrestling with the "continue being clever" scenario [and the inevitable 'prawn' who will end up mucking around
with the funky itemDelim and then complain] and the far more goofy (but possibly more sensible) scenario of having
2 fields . . .

Probably have to bow my head and go for the goofy solution.

[stam]

Probably have to bow my head and go for the goofy solution.

no need

put this in your field's script:

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constant kSeparatorText = "do not edit this line" -- or whatever segment of text is going to be unique to the separator line
on rawKeyDown pKeyCode
     local tText
     lock screen 
     set the dontWrap of me to true
     put the text of the selectedLine into tText
     if tText contains kSeparatorText then 
          set the dontWrap of me to false
     else
          set the dontWrap of me to false
          pass rawKeyDown -- passing rawKeyDown allows text editing as normal
     end if    
end rawKeyDown

this will stop editing of the line that contains kSepartorText, but all other lines will edit as expected.

Hope that helps,
Stam

[richmond62]

Thanks Stam, it does.

However, I chickened out:
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[stam]

In fairness that looks like a better design...

[richmond62]

In fairness that looks like a better design...

Thanks.

I am obviously even more mental than I realised as I spent 8 hours wide awake in bed with that
blasted thing going round and round in my head.
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