Revolution Comment

J. Landman Gay jacque at hyperactivesw.com
Fri Nov 19 23:41:26 EST 2004


On 11/19/04 5:41 PM, Timothy Miller wrote:

> Howdy,
> 
> I've been a hyperCard user since before some subscribers here were born. 
> This is my maiden message on this forum. Let's see how many people I can 
> irritate  ;-)

I, for one, am delighted to see you here. Welcome.

> On DoMenu... and Set the top of bg field "foo" to 999 seemed to be the 
> main problems. These things shouldn't be hard to fix. I'll have to 
> figure out how to write a proper script to set the top of bg field foo...

That should work without any changes; there must be something else going 
on. The HC syntax is supported as-is.

"DoMenu" commands don't work -- that's part of the compromise we make 
for the amazing cross-platform capability. Menus are just buttons; all 
you need to do to convert your existing menu items is to move the 
relevant doMenu commands directly into the button script itself. 
However, you do have to create the menu bar first so that you can script 
it. You use the Menu Builder (in the Tools menu) to do that.

If you haven't already seen it, you might be interested in the HC-to-Rev 
conversion tutorial, which walks you through the process of creating 
menu bars (among other things):

<http://www.hyperactivesw.com/mctutorial/>

> 
> OTOH... My native hyperCard popUp buttons didn't display right. When I 
> opened  up the hood, so to speak, I was amazed and overwhelmed by the 
> huge number of ways I could configure the buttons. Same reaction when I 
> looked at how to set field attributes. I'll figure out how to make them 
> display right, by trial and error, probably. The documentation must be 
> overwhelming, also.
> 
> Some people will love all the new features. Computer professionals, 
> mostly, I'd guess. I'm kind of disappointed. Revolution is a Space 
> Shuttle, and all I need is a hang glider. That's why HC was such a good 
> thing for me in the first place. Why can't we have Revolution Lite, for 
> morons like me? Native hyperCard 2.4 does everything I need, and much, 
> much more, except for a Reports add-on. Some of the HC externals are 
> handy, but I could get along without them. I gotta life, a family and a 
> profession. Learning massively complex new applications is not my idea 
> of a hobby!

There's a learning curve for sure, but you really don't need to learn 
much more than you already know, and you can safely ignore a lot of the 
IDE until you need it. But it doesn't take too long to get used to the 
differences and with your HC background you won't have any problems that 
last very long. While there are lots more options in Revolution than 
there are in HyperCard, the two really major hurdles for a HC user to 
get over are background behaviors and menus. The tutorial goes through 
all that.

For other sources of info (besides this list, which is excellent): 
RevOnline is full of information and tutorials. You might also want to 
read some of the items under the "Topics" menu in the Help menu. Another 
place to find info is in the main Documentation window -- click on 
either the Objects button or the FAQ button for information about things 
like the different button properties and styles, how the hierarchy 
works, etc.

> 
> This is one more incentive to stick with OS 9 or classic mode and 
> hyperCard for another year. I wonder how long I can make this last?

To be honest, I bet you won't bother. It will take you a couple of weeks 
to get over the hump and then you won't look back very often. The 
capabilities of Revolution are astounding; once you start using them it 
is hard to give them up. Just wait until the first time you open one of 
your stacks on a PC. ;)

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com


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