HyperCard is not multi-threaded. In particular, it can't automatically
handle Apple Events while it's waiting for a reply to an Apple Event that
it sent itself. While the "send" command awaits a reply from Frontier, all HyperCard can do is to handle update events from the Event Manager, suspend and resume events from the Process Manager, and command-periods from the user.
However, you can use an XCMD to do what you want in one of two ways:
* Send the Apple event to Frontier in queueReply mode and handle the
reply that comes back from Frontier as a separate Apple event in an
Apple event script (class 'aevt', id 'ansr'). This would mean that
HyperCard can respond to events coming from Frontier in the meantime,
including events to display the Frontier status messages in HyperCard
fields. It would also mean that HyperCard will be able to respond to
user events while it awaits the reply from Frontier, so you'll have to
do some careful HyperTalk scripting to figure out how to reconcile what
the user is doing with what you want to do when the reply from Frontier
comes back. The SendAppleEvent XCMD, available online, will send an
event in queueReply mode.
* Write an XCMD that sends the Apple event to Frontier and calls
GetSpecificHighLevelEvent in the idle proc for AESend, in order to
extract 'do script' events for HyperCard to handle while it awaits the
reply from Frontier. Writing this XCMD would require pretty good
knowledge of the High Level Event Manager, the Apple event Manager, and
the 2.0 XCMD callbacks, particularly RunXHandler.
This article is adapted from the Claris Tech Info database.
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