THE HYPERCARD CENTER

HyperTalk Reference

Note: This is a work in progress and many formatting issues have been fixed. Read more about the project on the home page.

disable

disable menu

disable menuItem of menu

disable button

The disable command dims menu items, entire menus, and buttons. It’s a shortcut for setting the enabled property of a menu item, menu, or button to false.

Users cannot choose dimmed menu items.

Disabled buttons don't receive mouseDown, mouseStillDown, mouseUp, or mouseDoubleClick messages when you click them.

Examples

disable menu "File"

disable menu 2

disable second menu

disable menuItem "New" of menu "File"

disable menuItem 2 of menu 2

disable second menuItem of second menu

disable button 1

disable background button id 1234

Demo Script

on disableTalkMenu

  if there is a menu "Reference" then

    disable menuItem "HyperTalk Reference" of menu "Reference"

  end if

end disableTalkMenu

Placeholders

menuItem

An expression that evaluates to one of the following:

menuItem text

menuItem posInteger

ordinal menuItem

For example:

menuItem "New"

menuItem 2

second menuItem

button

HyperTalk Definition

An expression that identifies a button by name, number, or id, using one of the following forms:

[card] button id posInteger [of card]

[card] button text [of card] -- name

[card] button posInteger [of card]

ordinal [card] button [of card]

bkgnd button id posInteger [of card]

bkgnd button text [of card] -- name

bkgnd button posInteger [of card]

ordinal bkgnd button [of card]

For example:

card button id 3894

card button "Return"

card button 1

first card button

bkgnd button 2 of card 2

last bkgnd button

When used inside a button script: me

When a button receives a message: [the] target

A button can also be referred to as a part when you’re talking about its position among all buttons and fields within the same card or background.

AppleScript Definition

An expression that identifies a button by name, number, or id, using the same forms as HyperTalk except that “background” must be used in place of “bkgnd”.

HyperTalk Reference

Version 0.8b4 (July 4, 2025)

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