For years I’ve had three related DBs and the one I launch first opens the other two and then would HIDE the one I didn’t need to see, but needed for lookups. Make Secret doesn’t work, because the hidden one, manually put out of the way with Command-M from OS shortcuts, is really the ongoing master DB.
Either I’m missing something, but the old Hide statement didn’t seem to work and secret is not what I want.
I’m also getting seemingly random failures in my .initialize script telling me one or the other of the two related DBs don’t exist. Not sure what that’s about, but it has not operated with any discernable pattern, so I can’t say what is going on there.
Command-M is the Finder shortcut for Minimize, which shrinks a window to the Dock. Command-H is the Finder shortcut for Hide, which makes an active application’s windows invisible. Hide in Panorama is now just the same as Noshow, and only stops the screen from redrawing until there is a Show command in a procedure. None of these are what you want.
You really want secret windows. PanoramaX 10.2 handles them better than any previous version, so you need to learn about Auxiliary Databases. Look it up in Help.
OK, I’ll check on it. I use Command-M and -H all the time, and in fact am using -M now to hide the file I only need for lookup, but do need to get to frequently, at which point I go to the hidden DBs in the Window menu. I’ve done this for years and years. I’ve messed with my .initialize script now, but I’m pretty sure I had a “hide” statement in there that worked.
From what I saw experimenting with makesecret is that it is a little too secret, and so then I have to work around that since the master DB is no longer listed in the Window menu.
Hide has never hidden the window. It has merely stopped the window from updating during the procedure. It made some procedures run faster, because they weren’t being interrupted to update the window, but it also had the unpleasant side effect of corrupting data if the procedure switched windows during a hide.
The NoShow command was introduced in Panorama 3.1, which was similar but didn’t have that side effect. Now, the Hide command is just a NoShow with a different name.
OK, that triggers a memory – it was noshow in my old .init script. Sorry for the failing memory. But whatever it was, and I could look at an archive or an old annual set to see what i did that I liked, it opened the three DBs, and hid/unshowed the Master (used only for lookups in this operation). Then if I needed the Master, I could either double click it from the desktop, where it is always visible, or use the Window menu. I’ll probably write a BTT macro to open all three and Finder Command-M the Master. Seems the easiest way to do what I need. For my primitive purposes, I can’t imagine using MakeSecret.
The problem with minimizing is that there are circumstances where you might make a mistake and suddenly the window you have minimized pops up and covers whatever you have been working on. But if it works for you, you can use it. I would not use it if someone else ever uses those files.
You do not need any macro to open all three files. Auxiliary Databases will do it for you.
Right. Except a macro will then minimize/hide the master DB that I don’t want in my way when I’m doing this intensive stuff for the next 2 weeks. I know I can just Command-M but I prefer one step to two.
There is no statement that will minimize it to the dock, and the only statement that will make it invisible is MakeSecret. Hide and NoShow do something that is completely unrelated.
It is one step to set it up, and then you never have to do it again. The master file will open secretly, and the other two files can be opened any way you want. A simple procedure will open whatever window you want in the master file if you ever want to look at it. If you close it, it can be made to stay open secret without doing anything, as long as the other files are open. So what you are doing takes one step, which you should not need to do at all.