Create style/character spec in XPress 4.1

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Classic Mac OS
#1

Any help on the following greatly appreciated:

The XPress 4.1 AppleScript reference lists the following as correct syntx for creating a new character spec:

make character spec at beginning

What it doesn’t say is that you should do this:

… with properties {…}

This syntax does work in XPress 3.x, with as simple a line as:

make style spec at beginning with properties {name: "hello world"}

But I can’t make this happen in XPress 4.1 at all. Every time I try I get an error like “Some data was the wrong type”.

#2

In the interests of helping someone else solve the same problem, here’s how I did it, the Quark AppleScript reference is wrong:

make character spec at end with properties {name:"hello world 3",  «class CATR»:{base shift:"0 pt", color:color spec "5th Black Film", font:"Gill Sans Bk", horizontal scale:"100%", shade:"100%", size:"6.75 pt", style:{class:text style info, on styles:{plain}, off styles:{bold, italic, underline, outline, shadow, superscript, subscript, superior, strikethrough, all caps, small caps, word underline}}, track:"0", vertical scale:"100%"}}

One oddity i found was that you could have either:

color:color spec "5th Black Film"

or:

color:"5th Black Film"

But the named colour must exist

The only part of this I could not get to work is “base style”, which would usually go like this:

make  character spec at end with properties {name:"hello world 3", base style: character spec "specName", «class CATR»:{...}}

But I can’t get that to work, just get a “can’t make a character spec” error.

Any clues on setting the base style property very much appreciated.