Transcript - HyperTalk book?

[Bob Arnold]

As another RR "newbie" and a McLaren and surrealism fan, I'll try to address
some of the issues you raise.

I may have a more extensive bg in HC than you have, but I find HyperTalk and
my Hypercard scripting manual very useful; I think RR has only added
elements to HC. I haven't found any Hypertalk which RR hasn't accepted. The
RR documentation I use constantly is the Transcript dictionary -- I just
wish the examples could be copied and pasted.

But the RR manuals are now available, I think for $79 (until the end of
June, then $99) plus shipping (about $25 to the US).

And RR can distribute a Mac app on Windows and Unix with the downloadable
cross-platform engines. This is why I  made the switch from dying Hypercard.

I wasn't able to find Hypercard tutorials online either.

I agree that Hypercard is easier to jump into than RR -- but given the
compatibility (except for Hypercard's lame color features), try making a
hypercard app, and then importing it to RR. That's what I am doing. It's
going pretty well, but there are a few little things I can't figure out,
like how to enter text directly into a field rather than through the field's
properties dialog ... But some things are much easier in RR than HC (the
search and replace capability is wonderful).

Good luck

Bob

on 6/17/02 1:49 PM, Rik Panero wrote:

> I've stumbled onto Revolution and am trying to make sense of it.  I do not
> have a Hypercard background but from what I can tell, Transcript syntax
> seems to be closer to HyperTalk than anything else.  Would a HyperTalk
> book  be the way to go?  Several are available on my local library's shelf
> (though from the late 80s).  Are there any online HyperTalk tutorials (a
> Google search hasn't been very helpful) and what pitfalls should I be aware
> of regarding HyperTalk vs. Transcript?  I found a Hypertalk vs. Pascal page
> which was interesting due to my Borland Delphi background, but tinkering
> with the syntax of Revolution scripts (even after doing the tutorials) has
> proven to be quite frustrating and the help docs seem to be written for
> those "in the know" (and I'm fairly good at deciphering UNIX man pages so I
> really suspect there's some disconnect going on here that I need to discover).
> 
> Also, is rendering Mac apps on anything other than the Mac platform
> impossible, or is it a feature that will be introduced eventually?
> 

-- 
Robert Arnold
Associate Professor of Film
Boston University
Tel (617) 353-7735  Fax (617) 353-1084
http://people.bu.edu/rfarnold/