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I am a complete beginner with Revolution, as you will see with my first question: How do I edit the background (the elements which are common to all or many cards)..

Backgrounds in Revolution are not like those in HyperCard. In fact, cards by default do not have a background. Instead, you use a group control and set its backgroundBehavior property to true.

So, to edit the background for the first time, simply create all the controls you need; group them; and set the backgroundBehaviour of the group to true. The side effect of the latter property is that when you create a new card, it will inherit all the background groups that are on the current card.

Later, if you need to modify the contents of the background group, you can either directly manipulate the items directly by enabling 'Select grouped controls' in the toolbar - or you can do it in an 'isolated' environment, by selecting the group and clicking the 'Edit group' button in the toolbar.

HTH,

Jan Schenkel.

I worked with HyperCard until the coming of MacOS X and then switched to SuperCard. I've never really been as enthusiastic about SC as I was about HC and now I've decided to look for an alternative. RevMedia looks to be able to do all that I need, and the demo I'm currently playing around with is encouraging. Backgrounds, however, are something of a problem, as they were so much a part of both HC and SC, yet seem to be handled in a very different way in RevMedia. I can't grasp the idea of the Group: okay, I can get a set of text fields and buttons to group together and to act as background elements, appearing on each card, but if I modify the group, say by adding a button or moving a text box, then this produces a warning that I shall lose the text data on other cards (and this is just what happens!): this would spell disaster for me in a non-test environment.

I must be missing something.

Is it really not possible to modify a background (group) of all of the cards of that "background"? (Apologies for the use of HC terminology, but it's the best way I know of describing the situation.)

exheusden,
I tried on the small stack I did to change the background group by adding a button and deleting the button, adding a field and deleting the field (had no data) and the button and the field showed up on all three cards. So what problem do you have with editing the background?
regards
Bernd

I have no idea what was going wrong with the modification of groups, only that each time I tried to change or add something, I'd get the warning message mentioned previously.

Since then, I have been able to edit groups easily enough, without the message appearing.

One thing: why when I wish to edit a group, must I first select the group, then the menu Object->Edit Group, then select the group again and once more select the menu Object->Edit Group?

Exheusden,
the only time I get a warning from Rev when fiddling with background groups is when I try to delete the group, not when I try to delete an object within that group although the object may have content on several cards.

One thing: why when I wish to edit a group, must I first select the group, then the menu Object->Edit Group, then select the group again and once more select the menu Object->Edit Group?

Could it be that you have a group in a group? That is the only thing I can think of. Look in the property inspector or in the application browser if that is the case. Other then that could you inadvertedly have unselected the group the first time? No idea.

regards
Bernd