On 1/25/11 6:20 PM, John Patten wrote:
I'm trying to divide a paragraph into random chunks, but I'm not quite
sure how to do it.
Here's what I'm thinking:
With some minor revisions your script will work but it isn't as
efficient as it might be.
put the text of cd fld "paragraphContainer" into tParagraph
put the number of words in tParagraph into tWordCount
put random(10) into tRandomGroup --determineshow many words per chunk
put tWordCount/tRandomGroup into tNumberOfWordsInChunk --I know I could have
a decimal, but I'll deal with that later...
put 0 into x
"div" will eliminate the decimal problem, but the variable isn't used
after this so I'd remove that line.
repeat until number of words in cd fld "paragraphContainer" = 0 --Not sure
this is possible?
Yes, that's valid.
create field
set the loc of last fld to (x+5,150) -- stepping the location of each new
field over 5 pixels
select first tRandomGroup words of cd fld "paragraphContainer" --
planning to cut selected words from field and just repeat until all words are cut from
field
You can select "the first word of" but you can't select "the first x
words of". So instead you'd need to change that to "select word 1 to
tRandomGroup words of...".
cut selectedText
paste into last cd fld
add 5 to x
end repeat
Accessing fields is one of the slowest things you can do, so it's best
to avoid that as much as possible. The more you can do in memory, the
better. Selecting text, cutting, and pasting are all expensive operations.
One way to access fields less is to do all the chunking in memory and
only access fields when you need to create and put text into them. I
might do something like this:
on mouseUp
put the text of cd fld "paragraphContainer" into tParagraph -- don't
touch the field again after this
put random(10) into tWordsPerChunk -- words per chunk
put 0 into x
put 1 into tCurWordCount -- tracks which word we're at
repeat until tCurWordCount > the number of words in tParagraph
create field
set the loc of last fld to (x+5,150)
put word tCurWordCount to tCurWordCount+tWordsPerChunk of
tParagraph into last fld
add tWordsPerChunk+1 to tCurWordCount
add 5 to x
end repeat
put "" into fld "paragraphContainer" -- if you want
end mouseUp
This is more efficient than cutting and pasting but it isn't as fast as
it could be either, because each time through the loop the engine has to
count up to the tCurWordCount word before it can find the text we want.
So it's a little faster to just lop off the text you're done with --
like your original idea, only do it all in RAM:
on mouseUp
put the text of cd fld "paragraphContainer" into tParagraph
put random(10) into tWordsPerChunk -- words per chunk
put 0 into x
repeat until tParagraph = ""
create field
set the loc of last fld to (x+5,150)
put word 1 to tWordsPerChunk of tParagraph into last fld
delete word 1 to tWordsPerChunk of tParagraph
add 5 to x
end repeat
put "" into fld "paragraphContainer" -- if you want
end mouseUp
You were on the right track.
--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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