The Framework Icon: we use it mainly for "paging structures." I know I have had my own preconceptions about where I could or couldn't use a Framework icon. I was sure that Frameworks could only be used to display pages of content as defined by my storyboards or to hang subroutines from.

Then I was working on a form where a user could select a value from a ComboBox. Based on the selection, more form fields would show and different values would be set. In my mind, the form as a whole was a "page." The selection of different values was an interaction on the "page."

But the sets of form fields were mutually exclusive, and the variables controlling what was shown in the fields needed to be initialized after every selection. So, though the selection took place "in the middle of a page," I used a Framework icon with a page for each possible selection.

I used a Perpetual Conditional response above the framework to catch changes in the WinCtrls Combobox, followed by a calculated navigation icon that navigated to the correct page on the Framework icon. A calculation icon in the entry pane of the Framework initialized the necessary variables.

In the end, the Framework is just another icon, and we should keep it in mind for problem-solving just as much as we do the other icons.

Last week I posted some tips from Dan and Jennie's session at TAW. One tip that was really news to me was about the Button Editor.

You probably know that you can create label-only buttons in Authorware by simply creating a new button and selecting "Show Label." One problem with doing this is that Authorware tends to crop the text so that not all letters are completely visible.

Jennie showed that you can use the four small boxes that appear in the button editor at the corners of the label to enlarge the area that will be clickable. This also allows the entire label to display.

The guys at MojoMole don't have to go back in time to discover their Mojo. They're groovy, baby, and they have lots of free products to prove it. Check out their URL Encode/Decode u32 or their Progress bar ActiveX control, to name just two of the great offerings on this site.

On Friday night, when I would ordinarily have been writing my Tip of the Week, I was at the House of Blues in New Orleans.

Afterwards, we hit Bourbon Street, of course, and I was surprised to see a guy with a video camera taping the crowd outside one of the clubs. Turns out that the guy was running a webcam for www.nola.com.

It seems that webcams are a pretty commonplace thing in New Orleans these days. When we were at the House of Blues, we saw an ad for their webcam.

In an earlier TOW, I complained about not having a picture that shows my cat's eyes well. So here he is, Tux, with a close up on the eyes.