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Tips from TAW
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Jennie
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I probably got the most out of the session that Dan and Jennie taught.
I learned more little tricks in their session than I might find in months
by myself.
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Dan |
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The tips I have used most this week were about the use of the Trace window.
When you are watching a lot of variables in the Trace window, it can get
a bit confusing. To keep track, we often use Trace("MyVar:
"^MyVar). Unfortunately, if MyVar is a list, that adds "MyVar:
" to the beginning of each list element. In the past, I have used
a separate Trace statement for the name of the list. Jennie and Dan suggested
Trace("MyVar: "^String(MyVar)).
That way, you can get it all in one line!
Chris Swenson volunteered that he uses a "Debug" variable
to turn Trace statements on and off, so that there is less to sort through
in the Trace window. Taking that a step furthur, you could use Debug@"My
Calc" to turn the Trace Statements on and off on a Calculation
by Calculation basis.
Dan mentioned that he picked up the habit of including line numbers
from ASP, so he now adds the line number to his Trace() statements.
I can vouch for the fact that this is a huge timesaver! You can see
the current line number in the lower left of the Calculation editor,
and you can see all line numbers by selecting "Show Line Numbers"
in the "General" Tab of the Calculation preferences (right
click in any calculation dialogue to view the preferences).
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Did you know? |
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Another tip that Jennie and Dan shared is that One Button Publishing has an undocumented feature that lets you set up "variables" as the first part of a file path.
To use this feature, right click in the Destination field and select "Edit Tokens." You can set up to ten tokens to different file paths ($TOKEN0-$TOKEN9).
To use the tokens, just type in the name of
the token where you would ordinarily have typed
the beginning of the path.
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Next Authorware Chat Tomorrow Morning (508 Compliance)
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The chat will be tomorrow, Saturday, June 29.
The chat will start at 9:00 am CDT. For the
rest of the world, that is 6 hours earlier than
current UK time and 5 hours earlier than GMT.
In the US this is 10:00 am Eastern, 8:00 mountain,
and 7:00 pacific. Expect the chat to last around
two hours.
Special guest Joe Ganci of Dazzletech.com
will share his expertise on 508 compliance.
For those of you outside the United States,
Section 508 is a set of laws US government sites
have to comply with to provide accessibility
to disabled individuals.
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Are you going to TAAC?
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TAAC is the "event of the year" for Authorware programmers. If you're a newbie and aren't sure what you need to learn, TAAC will let you get a feel for what is out there and how you might use it. If you are an expert, TAAC will let you get a glimpse of what the rest of the experts are doing, so that you come home with a whole stack of fresh ideas.
MMUG members can receive a 10% discount on TAAC7 tickets and merchandise. The page says that
the offer was only good through Apr 10, but
this has been extended to Aug 1. This is not
advertised anywhere else, but this could save
you $65!
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Blog
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Saturday night at TAW, we all
somehow wound up at the Texas Land and Cattle
Company for dinner. Luckily for us, there was
a liquor store directly across the street where
we could stock up for the pool party later that
night. This is Steve Howard, Dan Clinger, and
me (way in the back wearing a cowpoke hat),
clearing the shelves.
See Joe's
pictures of TAW or the
official TAW photos.
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