TECHNICAL NOTES

Errors:
     Inspect accepts entry of arbitrary expressions and
does not attempt to determine whether the expression is
legal Lingo.  For example, entering "member myVar" will
cause an error if "myVar" has a value higher than the
number of members.  This will cause the evaluation
window (the one selected in the top right popup menu)
to stop playing, just as it would if you told that
window to do an invalid Lingo statement.


Globals
     Inspect declares no global variables internally. 
If the preference is set to provide access to the
current inspection via the global variable "it",
Inspect declares "it" to be global and then sets "it"
to refer to the object being inspected, and then sets
"it" to void when the Inspect window is closed.
     You can use Inspect to declare and set global
variables much as you can in the message window.  If
you type a previously undefined variable name in the
entry field and then set it's value using the set
button, Inspect will create it as a global variable.


Keyboard:
     In the authoring environment cut, copy, and paste
can only be accessed with the buttons and not with the
keyboard. Undo is unfortunately not implemented in this
version.


Limits:
     The display field is limited to 32K.  When the
length of the string to be displayed exceeds this
limit, it is truncated.


Lists:
     On a Mac, option double clicking means holding down
the  key and double clicking.  On a Windows PC,
option double clicking means holding down the  key
while double clicking.
     Option double clicking on a regular list in the
display field will display only non-zero entries. 
Option double clicking on an line in a property list
will inspect the property for that line.


Lists by Value:
     Lists which are entered directly into the entry
field are treated by value instead of by reference 
This means that the "set" command will not work as
expected.  The entry field is not updated to reflect
the new value.  For example, if you enter "[1, 2, 3]"
into the entry field and then set the value of the
second item in the list to 7, the entry field will
still read "[1, 2, 3]" instead of "[1, 7, 3]".


Parent Scripts:
     If you have chosen the option of displaying the
properties in the order found in the script, you may
get inaccurate inspections or even errors if you have
two parent scripts with the same name and you try to
inspect a child of the script with the higher number. 
This is because the inspector will use the properties
found in the first script instead of the second.


Properties:
     If the FileIO Xtra(TM) is installed, options are
saved in the file "INSPECT.INI" in the Preferences
folder on the Mac or in the Windows System directory. 
One of the options is "ivsByType" which is a list of
the properties Inspect displays.  By editting this file
with a text editor, an advanced Lingo user can choose
which properties to have Inspect display, and even add
new types as they become available.
     Sprite properties which are calculated by Lingo on
the fly can not be displayed by Inspect.  These
properties include: "castLibNum", "cursor", "loc",
"memberNum", and "type".  For inspect to be able to
display it, a given property "x" has to be valid in the
following Lingo syntax:

  set mySprite = sprite 5 -- where sprite 5 is non-empty
  put the x of mySprite   -- will cause a Lingo error for some x

For each of the properties listed above, this will
produce a Lingo error. This is not as bad as it sounds,
since "memberNum" and "castLibNum" are displayed anyway
under the "member" property, and "loc" is displayed
under "locH" and "locV".  The "type" property does not
work the same as it did under Director 4.0.4, so many
developers no longer use it.  The "cursor" property,
however, would be useful, but unfortunately can not be
obtained from Inspect.
     Double-argument digital video sprite properties,
such as trackStartTime which takes both a sprite and a
track number as arguments, can not be displayed by
Inspect at this time.


Property Order:
     If the scriptText is not available, the properties
will be displayed in the order found, regardless of the
setting on the Inspect preferences screen.


Reference Counts:
     If you have the "global it" option enabled, you will
have an additional reference to the anything being
inspected.
     Inspect also maintains a reference to the the window
selected in the top right pop-up menu.
     Pressing the clear button will empty the inspection
chain, set "it" to zero if global it is enabled, clear
the display field and set the selected window to the
stage.
     When the Inspect window is closed, it voids the
global variable "it" if the global it preference is
enabled, and it clears the internal reference to the
evaluation window.


ToolTips
     Inspect ignores the setting for tooltips in the
Director preferences.  Tooltips for Inspect must be
turned on and off from the Insepct Preferences screen.

 
Windows:
     The popup window selection menu selects the window
environment in which Inspect evaluates expressions. 
Inspect uses the Lingo "tell" command to evaluate every
expression, since the same expression can have
different values in different windows.  The default
window, the stage, is all you need to use unless your
project uses movies in a windows.
     When you select a new evaluation window from the
popup menu in the upper right of the screen and you
have an active chain of inspections, that chain may
contain expressions which would be invalid if evaluated
by the new window.  It is useful in certain cases to be
able to evaluate the same expression in different
windows, so Inspect makes no attempt to ensure the
validity of the chain when the evaluation window
changes.  The result is that you may get Lingo errors
due to invalid expressions unless you clear the chain
(click the clear button) before changing windows.  For
example, if you are looking at "member 106" and then
switch to a movie with 100 members, you will get a
Lingo error if you press the recalc button.  Inspect
does not automatically reevaluate the current
expression in the entry field when you change windows. 
To reevaluate it press the recalc button.