use-revolution digest, Vol 1 #106 - 14 msgs

[Ken Norris]

on 1/11/02 1:38 AM, Gene Kennedy at cyberscope at home.com wrote:

> Hi Ken,
> 
> If you are targeting your applications for Mac then the answer is yes to all
> three items; and very easily.
> There are AppleScript scripting additions available for controling X-10
> devices, sending e-mail and
> synthesizing speech.  You can use all of these with RR's AppleScript/OSA
> support via the "Do" command.
> 
> Alternatively, you should be able to develop your own e-mailer using RR only,
> after a little familiarization.
> There is also an external for RR that you can use for text-to-speech
> conversions.
> 
> I too am new to RR but have no HC experience to build on.  So, I'm learning a
> lot as I go.  But what I've found
> so far is a development tool with extremely broad scope and depth.  I'ts like
> the Swiss Army Knife of software.
> Or like the old Prego Spaghetti Sauce commercials used to say; "It's in
> there!"
> 
> The X-10 scripting addition is available at http://www.seracsoftware.com/.
----------
Thanks Gene. That's very helpful.

FYI, HyperCard has been referred to many times as the "Swiss Army Knife" of
software development tools over it's 16+ years of existence (from ver. 1.0
to the last and current ver. 2.4.1). I think I first heard the term applied
to it back in '88. I would highly recommend getting a book called HYPERTALK
2.2 THE BOOK 2nd edition. Jeanne DeVoto is one of the co-authors and
probably still has some lying around. Also, Bob Stelloh on the HC group list
and at iHug has few left, too. I wouldn't be without it in any xCard/xTalk
environment. Also, Danny Goodman's HYPERCARD MANUAL 2.0 is very good,
probably has the best string manipulation instruction.

Still, for me, it's mostly about learning the interface and all the library
functions. In the way of finding where things are and how they work, it
would probably be better if I didn't know HC, and was starting RR from
scratch like you, so hang in there.

Best regards,
Ken N.