AMS Design environment questions

[Lavrendi]

Is it possible to...:

1a. Insert a text file while editing a Text Box Object - Set Text action ?
1b. Be able to "link" that actual content of Text object to an external file at design time, but having the content of text file being automatically inserted within the object at build time (allowing external editing at design time, but no unnecessary link to external files at runtime) ?

2. Open in queue a serie of objects opening with the same object panel (settings, actions, attributes, etc.) (and not the last one used, being different for each object) ?

3. Clone some of the object properties from one object to another (font, alignment, etc.) ?

4. Use keyboard shortcut to move from one object to another ? (I like keyboard editing more than mouse editing)

6. See all type of events at once for one given object (mouseover, leave, click, etc.), avoiding to check all sub-menu manually for any leftover after a major design change. (or any equivalent view to would do the trick) ?

7. Self-reference of an object to be passed to a variable ? For instance for an object called Text1, instead of having %dummy%=TextObject(Text1).GetText, having something like %dummy%=TextObject(%self%).GetText. This would help creating more portable code.

[TJ_Tigger]

1a. Insert a text file while editing a Text Box Object - Set Text action ?
Yes, you can define the text for an Text Box Object when you define it in the AMS environment.

1b. Be able to "link" that actual content of Text object to an external file at design time, but having the content of text file being automatically inserted within the object at build time (allowing external editing at design time, but no unnecessary link to external files at runtime) ?
Yes, When you define the page that contains the Text Box Object or Text Object you can set on the On Show/On Initalize you can set the text to what over you want. Before you set the text you will want to use the Text.Read action to read the text file from your project into a string then you can use that string to set your text box/text object. This is easy to do at run time and allows you to have a dynamic project.

If you search the forum you might find a project that workest with Dynamic files to set text objects and links to files.

2. Open in queue a serie of objects opening with the same object panel (settings, actions, attributes, etc.) (and not the last one used, being different for each object) ?
Yes, you can use the File.Search option to search for Text files contained in a directory for your project. That delimited string could then be used to queue that list of text files to be opened in a text box/text object. I am guessing you would have navigation buttons that would find the next item in line in a delimited string to open in your object.

3. Clone some of the object properties from one object to another (font, alignment, etc.) ?
You can use a master page and inherit properties from the master page. Button and backgrounds and stuff like that.

4. Use keyboard shortcut to move from one object to another ? (I like keyboard editing more than mouse editing)
In your design phase or in the running project?

6. See all type of events at once for one given object (mouseover, leave, click, etc.), avoiding to check all sub-menu manually for any leftover after a major design change. (or any equivalent view to would do the trick) ?
This is not possible as far as I know.

7. Self-reference of an object to be passed to a variable ? For instance for an object called Text1, instead of having %dummy%=TextObject(Text1).GetText, having something like %dummy%=TextObject(%self%).GetText. This would help creating more portable code.
Again this is not possible as far as I know.

Tigg

[Lavrendi]

Thanks for answering.

However, I realize I wasn't clear or made typo mistakes on some of the points as some of the answers are obviously not in line with my concerns. I therefore reformulate points 1 to 4 again. They are all related to design time.

1a. (My typo) When I edit a TEXT OBJECT - Set Text action, I can either type the text, insert variables, file path, folder path or distribution folder reference. I can also paste the text from clipboard. My question was: is it possible to insert the text directly from a file, not using the clipboard ? It is possible for a TextBox Object, but is it for a Text Object ?

1b. I want my autorun to load everything in memory at startup, and avoid as possible any link to external file at runtime. This is to avoid the annoying spinning and seeking delay on some CD drivers. Thus, reading an external file is something I do only for an optionnaly clickable very long text. Therefore, the short description associated with hundreds of small textobjects should be within the AMS project at run time. Also, I want my project to be simple, and I don't want to handle hundreds of variables that would be loaded in once shot at application initilization time and then pass to the appropriate textobjects. So, no external file(s) for short text snippets at runtime.

My design is such that the dynamic content of a unique textbox called "description" on the right side of the page change when I click text objetcs on the left side. To do so each text object on the left has one action:

TextBoxObject(Description).SetText("text describing the item")

The actual text for each TextObject being different, this is what I would like to be easily insertable and editable from external files at DESIGN time only, but built-in in the autorun at runtime. AFAIK, this is something that looks not possible in AMS, but I might be wrong.

2. To edit an object at design time, I double-click it or Ctrl-Enter. The object opens on the last panel used. Now, when I edit, let's say, 10 different objects one after another in order to harmonize font, alignment or actions, I have to open each object, edit it, and close it. What would be interesting at these time would be that all objects open on the *same* panel. Otherwise, additionnal mouse clicks are required to go to the same panel or event panel.

3. I was talking about cloning some properties at design time, without using a master page. Something like "click an object - copy properties settings - click another object - paste properties settings". Similar to the Copy Format tool available in Word.

4. At design time, to edit an object, you have to select it, then enter properties by double-clicking it or typing ctrl-enter. I prefer using the keyboard whenever possible. However I could not find a valid keyboard shortcut to select an object. In some other apps, the Tab or Ctrl-Tab key is used to cycle through items or object. Is there an equivalent in AMS ?