NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/bit/listserv/toolbl/32

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 3.0 KB | 67 lines

Comments: Gated by [e-mail]
Path: sparky!uunet!uvaarpa!darwin.sura.net!paladin.american.edu!auvm!UALTAVM.BITNET!TBUTLER
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.toolb-l
Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 21:00:37 MST
Sender:       Asymetrix 'Toolbook' product discussions <[e-mail]>
From:         Terry Butler <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Relationship between Text and Hotwords
Lines: 56

Although the trail of this topic has gone cold, I found the question
to be of interest and immediate relevance to what I am doing with
Toolbook.  For students of French, I have an exercise with uses
a recordField with the text of a story, where numerous
words (and phrases) are hotWords.  These hotWords have the text of
a verb in its infinitive form.
  Eg in English:  I [to go] to the store after [to stop] at the bank.
The student clicks on the hotWord and is given a series of choices
through menus to develop the correct verb forms:
  Eg  went    and   stopping
Now I want to change that part of the text in the recordField to read:
        I went to the store after stopping at the bank.
I could find no way to relate the hotWord to the text of the field
which contains it except the following:

-- This script connects the text of a field with the hotwords in it.
-- It is the only way that the text of a hotword can be changed
-- under script control: it must be changed as
-- "chars x to y of text of (record)Field Z"
-- Changing the text DESTROYS the hotword: if needed, reselect and
-- recreate it.  Changing the text also changes the offsets of
-- all the hotwords FOLLOWING it: they have to be adjusted
-- by the difference in length between the new text and the old text.
-- This script takes a significant time to execute in Toolbook.
-- NB: the following script assumes that two hotwords are not
-- immediately adjacent (no space or character between them).
put the charCount(text of recordField "Text") into lastCount -- the text
put the objects of recordField "Text" into objList -- the hotwords
-- Hotwords are reported in their visible order no matter what order
-- they have been created.
 put 1 into hotWordNumber
 step i from 1 to lastCount
  select char i of (text of recordField "Text")
  if (item 5 of selectedTextState) is false then
   continue step -- the text is not in a hot word
  end if
  put i into firstChar -- first character of the hotword
  while (item 5 of selectedTextState) is true
   increment i
   select char i of (text of recordField "Text")
   -- moving through the hotword
  end while
  -- we have selected the first character after the hotword
  put (i - 1) into lastChar -- last character of the hotword
  -- The system variable offsetList stores the character
  -- offsets of this hotword.
  set item hotWordNumber of offsetList to \
     firstChar && lastChar
  increment hotWordNumber
 end step

 Any other ideas?  Any hope for something better in version 2.0?

 Terry Butler  CALL/Humanities Computing Coordinator
 University of Alberta
 [e-mail]