Ah, another grammarhead! I love it! I've always found it interesting that the obsessive focus on syntax and grammar needed by programmers/coders to use the coding language well is rarely associated with equal attention to grammatical English.
-- Peter Peter M. Brigham pmb...@gmail.com http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig On Feb 21, 2012, at 12:12 PM, Ken Ray wrote: > > On Feb 20, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Graham Samuel wrote: > >> Having finally reviewed that page (12) I notice that the description doesn't >> apply to my case. I have not locked the screen, and am just doing a >> card-to-card transition. As I said, my very simple example works (set up a >> "flip left" visual effect, then go to a different card), but it doesn't work >> in my app. I am quite prepared to believe it's my fault but I really can't >> see what I'm doing wrong. Incidentally, locking and unlocking the screen as >> described in the document doesn't help. > > Is it possible you're using an unsupported adjective? I discovered that if I > used "slowly" instead of "slow", the visual effect wouldn't work. The only > supported adjectives are "very slow", "slow", "normal", "fast", and "very > fast". > > OT: Grammar (you can stop reading here if you don't care about this) > > <soapbox> > As someone who's kind of picky about the use of language, the fact that the > descriptor is described in the iOS Development Release Notes as an > *adjective* and not an *adverb* drives me crazy… you see visual effects > originated in HyperCard, then SuperCard, and then ultimately in > MetaCard/Revolution/LiveCode. At the beginning, the syntax allowed for both > proper adverbs (like "slowly") as well as improper ones (like "slow"). But at > some point along the way, Revolution/LiveCode dropped official support (in > the documentation, that is) for proper adverbs. So where you used to be able > to use: > > unlock screen with visual effect dissolve slowly > > you are now urged to use: > > unlock screen with visual effect dissolve slow > > The current desktop versions of LC still support proper adverbs, but the > mobile versions don't. Personally I see that as a bad direction. Use of > "slowly" is the correct form, since "dissolve", "flip", etc. are all > *verbs*, thus requiring an *adverb* to modify them. Adjectives are meant to > modify *nouns*, which in this case is the "visual effect". So if the speeds > were adjectives, or if for some reason the noun being modified is "visual > effect dissolve" and not "visual effect", the syntax would end up being: > > unlock screen with slow visual effect dissolve > > However since the current syntax is to apply the modifier *after* the > description of the effect, it means that "dissolve" is a verb, and as such > should use an adverb. And while most of the rest of the world seems OK with > saying things like: > > "The car moves fast" (instead of "The car moves quickly") > "Your clock is running slow" (instead of "Your clock is running slowly") > "Eat a healthy breakfast" (instead of "Eat a healthful breakfast") > > I feel that LiveCode should at least continue to support adverbs with visual > effects on *all* platforms. > > Thank you for listening to this rant… > > :D > </soapbox> > > Ken Ray > Sons of Thunder Software, Inc. > Email: k...@sonsothunder.com > Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
