A quick way to add the Paragraph.SetText action is to click the Add Action button, and then type the letters par on the keyboard. As you type in these letters, the category drop-down will skip ahead to the first category that matches what you typed. Once the Paragraph category is shown, click on the Paragraph.SetText action in the list, and click Next to advance to the second page of the New Action wizard.
The ObjectName parameter lets you specify the name of the object that you want this action to operate on. In this case, we want to change the text in the paragraph object named "Status Text."
The Text parameter lets you specify the text that will be displayed in the object. In this case, we want to display a message indicating what the "Ted Sellers Online" button is for.
The "\n" inside the message represents a newline character. It basically means to start a new line, just like pressing Enter in a text editor. (This is known as an escape sequence. An escape sequence is a special "code" that represents a character that can't just be typed into a
string normally. In this case, the code \n represents the invisible character you type by pressing the Enter key.)
Note: Remember to click Finish on the New Action wizard and then click OK on the script editor to finish adding the action.
3 ) C hoo s e P ubli s h > P rev i e w. Wh e n t h e a ppli ca t ion op e n s , m o ve t h e m ou s e o ver t h e " T e d S e ll er s Onlin e " bu tt on a f e w t i me s .
When you move the mouse onto the "Ted Sellers Online" button the first time, the text in the paragraph object changes. This is the Paragraph.SetText action at work.
Note that the text in the paragraph object doesn't have any quotes around it. The quotes that you placed around the text in the action's parameters aren't included in the text when it's displayed; they are only there to tell the action that you're giving it a string.
Note: In computer lingo, a "string" is a sequence of characters, including text and anything else that can be typed. Referring to a sequence of letters and symbols as a "string" supposedly dates back to the late 1800s, when compositors would "string together" letters as part of the printing process. (In fact, it's said that they were actually paid by the foot, and not by the word.)