Untouchable fields!

[Dave Francis]

Hi guys, well I finally solved my Bad Star ID problem the hard way, dragged up an out-of-date version of my favourite project and brought it back up to date.

I thought I was finally home and dry, but no way! Suddenly this afternoon I can no longer type anything into my open fields. I click in a field to add a comment, and the blinking I-beam won't stick! Anything I type is diverted to the message box.

Is this some kind of obscure global property that's suddenly come unstuck? Or is my copy of SC showing it's age, like me!

I can't use my precious project if I can't type anything into it. And if I can't use it - I'm like a fish out of water.  I'd really appreciate some suggestions folks.  Any ideas anyone? 🤔

[Jerzy Dydak]

Check out on Bad Star ID at

https://x.com/i/grok/share/RKlP9XeN3t2mcEPg0U4w7i1tE

I had it a few weeks ago but it disappeared once I split my heavy calculations into a few steps and closing the SuperCard after each step.

Best,

Jerzy

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[Dave Francis]

Hi Jerzy,

Thanks for this, but I don’t see how it helps me with my misbehaving fields. Do you think they’re connected to that Bed Star problem?

I should mention that I’m not very computer literate. I’ve only ever used SuperCard at the very highest level, using just the Runtime Editor, and don’t even have SuperEdit. Maybe I discarded it sometime in the past, I don't know. I’m 83 and my memory isn’t as sharp as it should be.

In the SC menu Utilities, there’s a SuperScript item, but all that does is allow me to get an rtf or a plain text transcription of all my project's scripts. I can’t really see the point of that.

In the link you gave me, the ‘Grok Conversation’ (was that written by Mark Lucas? The ‘Grok’ word coined by Bob Heinlein is part of Mark’s vocabulary 😄), it suggests I open my project in SuperEdit, which I don’t have. And it says ‘Go to Project > Validate Project. But I don’t have anything like that in my SC menus.

Like I say, I’m only a surface user, so I guess I’ll have to muddle through, dropping back to previous copies of my project - taking one step forward and two steps back. 😅

Dave Francis

dfra...@internode.on.net

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[Mark Lucas]

I don’t know offhand of an SC property setting which would cause this behavior, but it’s easy enough to elicit with an errant or malformed put command (so that’s likely what’s happening here). But the specific problem is kinda dicey to diagnose remotely.

The Sharedfile implements standard msg box functionality with scripts that could’ve gotten stepped on, or the glitch could be entirely unrelated to them, so to find out where the error lies you need to use the Script Tracer to step through what happens when you press a key while a field is open.

And no I didn’t write any of that. Alas grok is also X/Elon’s infamously odious and deranged AI hatebot assistant (aka MechaHitler), and it probably generated that page itself.

[Dave Francis]

Hi Mark,

It’s really good to see you’re still around 😃. And being most helpful as always. Thanks for the input, I’ve sort of been assuming the worst, thinking my weird fields might be a manifestation of that nasty Bad Star thing. It could have been lurking in my stuff since the Apple IIe crawled out of the sea for all I know. (many years after I was born 😂).  

I’d actually started making lists of all the ‘parts’ of my big proj, expecting to have to rebuild it from the ground up. So although using the Trace (a brilliant tool) is hard enough work for me, it’s an infinitely better prospect than kick-starting the world, so to speak.

But it’s a slippery problem none the less. For no apparent reason I can now insert the I-beam into a field, but the first character I type elicits a response from the nearest script, demanding to know what’s going on.

I’m sorry to here about grok, I rather liked that word myself. But if the richest predator in the world has commandeered it, I never want to hear it ever again.

Not that this has to do with anything, but I believe a musk can be a rather bad smell given off by an animal in rut. And when I was a kid in the old country, a fart was referred to as a trump. So it’s rather ironic that a musk and a trump between them can amount to one godawful stink!

Best regards to you Mark, Dave.

Dave Francis

dfra...@internode.on.net

On 25 Nov 2025, at 9:59 am, 'Mark Lucas' via SuperCard Discussion <superca...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I don’t know offhand of an SC property setting which would cause this behavior, but it’s easy enough to elicit with an errant or malformed putcommand (so that’s likely what’s happening here). But the specific problem is kinda dicey to diagnose remotely.

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[Mark Lucas]

What script? What handler? If you click Go what happens?

[Dave Francis]

Ahh, sorry my friend, the biggest problem is my sluggish old brain. 

I’ve just remembered I switched to a slightly earlier copy of the project, nowhere near as frightening! 

The bg script is supposed to check my input and pass it on, but it seams even foggier than I am. 

The brandList and the collList are different fields, in a different area of the window. Maybe if I ask it if the cursor’s ‘within’ either of those fields it will like it better. 

Cheers, Dave.

Dave Francis

dfra...@internode.on.net

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[Dave Francis]

Nah, it’s still looking for a boolean, I’m not even sure what that is. Maybe I’ll take a break and look at it later.

Dave Francis

dfra...@internode.on.net

On 25 Nov 2025, at 3:01 pm, 'Dave Francis' via SuperCard Discussion <superca...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Ahh, sorry my friend, the biggest problem is my sluggish old brain. 

I’ve just remembered I switched to a slightly earlier copy of the project, nowhere near as frightening! 

The bg script is supposed to check my input and pass it on, but it seams even foggier than I am. 

<Screen Shot 2025-11-25 at 2.48.10 pm.png><Screen Shot 2025-11-25 at 2.50.03 pm.png>

The brandList and the collList are different fields, in a different area of the window. Maybe if I ask it if the cursor’s ‘within’ either of those fields it will like it better. 

Cheers, Dave.

Dave Francis

dfra...@internode.on.net

On 25 Nov 2025, at 2:32 pm, 'Mark Lucas' via SuperCard Discussion <superca...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

What script? What handler? If you click Go what happens?

On Nov 24, 2025, at 10:21 PM, 'Dave Francis' via SuperCard Discussion <superca...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

For no apparent reason I can now insert the I-beam into a field, but the first character I type elicits a response from the nearest script, demanding to know what’s going on.

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[Mark Lucas]

Yeah, the fog even shows up in your screenshots!

Or are my eyes just going bad?

[Dave Francis]

Ahah, now that the fog has cleared a little, I have it licked. 

The ‘within’ function worked fine once I’d remembered the syntax. It’s strange though, how just referring to those fields by name was enough to do the job for years, then suddenly today it was unacceptable.

SuperCard works in mysterious ways, it’s wonders to perform. 😇

Thanks again for your support Mark, Dave.

Dave Francis

dfra...@internode.on.net

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