Rev-to-HyperCard-to-Rev (There and Back Again)

[Jerry Daniels]

Fellow X-talkers...

This is not a question, but a simple reflection based upon a very 
recent experience.

I am working away on a commercial, vertical market application that 
needs to be ported from HyperCard to Revolution; from Mac OS9 to Mac 
OSX and Windows XP.

Migration:

1. I have, with the help of Chipp and Dan, built a brand new UI for the 
new application.
2. I am, however, migrating 100% of the data from HyperCard on OS9 to
     the new application and its platforms (Rev and the OS's).

To migrate the data, I have been working in HyperCard for a few days 
for the first time in nearly ten years.

Observations:

1. HyperCard was the king of data parsing in its day.
2. Revolution development time in this area is nearly TEN TIMES faster 
than HyperCard.
3. Revolution performance is nearly TEN TIMES faster than HyperCard.
4. I REALLY appreciate Revolution!

Without filter, replace, remote access of data (put line 1 of fld 
"Name" of stack "Mailing List 2" into theName), htmlText, and a host of 
other conveniences, we would be operating in the dark ages.

Bravo, to the Rev/MetaCard team over these last 15 years!

That said, there is one thing we could use from HyperCard: script 
formating/coloring built into the binary. This was built into HyperCard 
1.x and 2.x. I think it would be a big plus for Rev 3.x in the future.

Imagine...set the colors when the IDE opens, and, when it comes time to 
format a script, pass a field ID with a single call, and--WHAMMO--it 
formats the field into beautiful, indented, color-coded text. I'm 
talking full-bore formatting here: no saving htmlText or skimping by 
only formatting the current handler.

Just a thought...and maybe a point for future discussion.

Best,

Jerry Daniels
http://www.daniels-mara.com