A tutorial on the use of Frontier 5's new document capabilities
Author: Preston Holmes
Email: pholmes@ucsd.edu
First Published: Wed, Apr 16, 1998 at 12:04:33 PM
Last Revision: Wed, Apr 16, 1998 at 12:04:33 PM
Keywords: guest, database, file, based,object, document
Level of Difficulty: Easy
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Frontier has always been a scripting system tightly integrated around an Object Database. This central database has long been ingrained into the culture of Frontier programming, but has also been one of the biggest points of confusion for beginners. With version 5, Frontier has been expanded to be more "Document Aware". That is, it now has the ability to work information that is stored in individual files that are Frontier specific. These files contain the same types of data (scripts, outlines, etc) as are stored in the ODB, but in their own files.
There are two broad types of data that are stored in Frontier's ODB. Simple, and window based objects. Simple data are values like numbers and strings. These are visible and editable directly in the ODB view. Window based objects however are opened into their own window for editing.
It is the window based object types that can be stored in their own file.
The following Frontier datatypes can be worked with in separate files:
- Script
- WP text
- Outline
- Menus
- Table
- database (or Guest Database)
When data is in its own file, the data referred to a file based object. For example you may have an outline that lives in a file instead of the ODB and you might say this is a file based object or a file based outline.
This tutorial will divided into two sections:
Standard file based objects: Scripts, Outlines, and Text (File based menus and tables are being ignored because I can think of no useful application).
Guest Databases: Which are more complex than the other file based object types. Most of the information about file based objects also applies to Guest Databases.
Page 1: Standard file based objects
Page 2: Guest Databases
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