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                   Hyper-Hackers Digest Vol. 1 #31
                             June 3, 1988

                              Subjects:

            Re: How to write XCMDs/XFCNs with Turbo Pascal
                 Re: looking for hypercard on ibm pc
        What's the current version of HyperTerm and its XCMDs?
                               Animate?
                              Re: (None)
  Re: A good book for desscribing nitty gritty of XCMDs and language use
                         Help changing cursor
                   Editing Text in Scrolling Fields
                     Re: CD ROMs and Video Disks
                         DBMS from Hypercard?
                             Re: Animate?
                Need Bibliography Management Software
                       Re: Parameters to XCMDs
                             Re: Animate?
                             Re: Animate?
                     "set name of target" problem
                   Re: "set name of target" problem
                   Re: "set name of target" problem
         Hypercard freezes after swap to 32-bit mode and back
                             Re: Animate?
                             Re: Animate?
                   Re: "set name of target" problem
                        LSC XCMD help please!
                     Help with: "Print Report..."
       Re: Hypercard freezes after swap to 32-bit mode and back
                        Need Airport Database
                       Print Report Problem...
                            Bug in HC 1.2
                     More naive user help needed

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: How to write XCMDs/XFCNs with Turbo Pascal
Date: 23 May 88 20:17:38 GMT

Turbo Pascal requires a unit and some glue code to create XCMDs nd XFCNs, but it

also requires a special header (a resource that you plug into your Turbo Pascal
application that lets you create XCMDs and XFCNs ... Turbo comes with one header

that allows you to create DAs).  I got mine (along with some documentation and
examples) from the Borland forum on CompuServe.  Once on CIS, do GO BORPROGA,
and look in data library 5 for a file called XCMD.SIT (Or something very close
to that).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (David Williams)
Subject: Re: looking for hypercard on ibm pc
Date: 23 May 88 02:02:21 GMT

>hi, i'm looking for hypercard on ibm pc (ms dos).
>is hypercard availible for ibm pc?

Guess again...it is from Apple and is designed to run on the Macintosh ONLY!
Strategically it would not make sense for Apple to put it on DOS...you will
have to wait for someone to come out with some kind of a clone...unless you
want just plain hypertext buy Guide from OWL international.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Thomas D. True)
Subject: What's the current version of HyperTerm and its XCMDs?
Date: 23 May 88 19:46:40 GMT

Does anyone now if HyperTerm or its associated XCMDS have undergone
any improvements since their release last summer?  If they have,
were could I get copies of the new versions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Bruce Mansfield)
Subject: Animate?
Date: 23 May 88 21:02:18 GMT

What is the recommended method for animating in hypercard.  I tried
going to successive cards in a stack, waiting a few ticks at each
card, starting from the openCard handler of the first card.  After about 6
cards, however, I get the error "Too Much Recursion".  Why do I get
this error and what does it mean?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Benjamin Kuo)
Subject: Re: (None)
Date: 20 May 88 03:21:10 GMT

  Hard way:  Have him re-construct the stack into segments (like the Home
stack and all the others).  Pretty easy if you just make "go to card" into
"go to stack"... as long as you don't have too many resources.

  Easy way:  Use a packing program, such as Stuffit 1.40A and Packit III v1.3,
or any of the number of about 10 chopping programs available on networks,
bulletin boards, and public domain distributors.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: A good book for desscribing nitty gritty of XCMDs and language use
Date: 25 May 88 04:02:41 GMT

>There is no REALLY good book on XCMD writing.  The best current source
>is APDA.  There is a disk with some sample XCMDs in C and Pascal with a
>bit of brief on-disk documentation.

I have been introduced to XCMDs syntax by the XCMD.SIT available from
Borland's forum.  The examples provided are relatively clear, except
for the correct procedure one should use to pass arrays, instead of
single parameters to XFCNs.

Which source would be the most appropriate and how do we get it?  Eg. ->
I have been especially puzzled by the following:

PROGRAM test;

 $R-
 $U-
 $D PasXFCN

USES   MemTypes, QuickDraw, OSIntf, HyperXCmd;

  PROCEDURE PasXFCN(paramPtr:#XCmdPtr);     (* THE # SHOULD READ AS A CARET *)

   VAR
    str    : Str255;

 $I Xcmdglue.Inc

   BEGIN;
    zeroToPas(paramPtr#.params[2]#,str);    (* THE # SHOULD READ AS CARET *)
    paramPtr#.returnValue := PasToZero(str);(* THE # SHOULD READ AS CARET *)
   END;

BEGIN
END.

If called with:       Put test(1,2) into someContainer
the XFCN returns 2, as expected.  However, if the string 1,2 is in a container,
a call such as:       Put test(field someField) into someOtherContainer
returns garbage of the form :  W>>W>>W>> (etc.)

What happens?  Can someone tell me how to transfer arrays residing in
HYPERCARD fields to an XFCN, and back?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Robert Steven Glickstein)
Subject: Help changing cursor
Date: 25 May 88 14:56:53 GMT

I am just getting into this HyperTalk script-writing business, so forgive me if
the answer to the following question is obvious.  It isn't to me.

I am writing a stack with a sort of toolbox in it.  When a user clicks on an
icon in the toolbox, the cursor should change to that icon.  I have all the
necessary CURS resources defined in this stack, and all the buttons in my
toolbox have scripts saying "set the cursor to 21768" or some such.  The
problem is that HyperCard (in the idle handler?) resets the cursor to the
browsing tool almost immediately.  How do I keep this from happening; and how
do I ensure that it will start happening again when I want it to?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Paul Romaniuk)
Subject: Editing Text in Scrolling Fields
Date: 26 May 88 01:26:18 GMT

Can anyone suggest a solution to this problem?  I'm writing a stack that's
designed to analyze sequences of nucleic acids.  These are long strings
(e.g. 100-10,000 characters long) without spaces or carriage returns.  Given
their size, they go into scrolling fields quite easily, and one of the
functions that I want to put into the stack is the ability to enter nucleic
acid sequences, and edit old sequences.  I didn't anticipate any problems, but
found that trying to insert characters anywhere within a >1500 long string
ties up my Mac Plus forever (no response after several minutes), and does even
stranger things on my Mac II.  On the Mac II, the newly typed characters appear
 in a spot entirely different from the insertion point.  However, this is a
display problem -- scrolling the field "resets" the display, and shows that the
new characters were in fact placed in the correct spot.  Selecting and deleting
 characters on the Mac II also has some unexpected difficulties.  Sometimes
everything, including characters past the insertion point disappear but again,
reappear after scrolling.  At other times, all but three or four of the
intended characters are deleted, but the remaining ones stay highlighted.
Once again, scrolling the field "resets" the display, showing that the
operation has actually been correctly performed.  This bug appears in both
HyperCard 1.1 and 1.2 -- is Apple aware of it?  Is there a fix available/ in
the works.  Anybody have a suggestion in the meantime?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Sean McLinden)
Subject: Re: CD ROMs and Video Disks
Date: 23 May 88 03:56:57 GMT

>I strongly suggest that anyone looking for a videodisk driver out of
>Hypercard get The Voyager Company's (213-474-0032) "The Voyager
>Videostack: A Toolkit for Interactive Video".

>Truely awesome stack for videoplayer enthusiasts.

I'll second this wholeheartedly. The latest release of the software
is well designed and almost instantly useful. We currently have three
separate projects using this software and I would recommend it to
anyone with an application for interactive videodisk.

BTW, their prices on players are the best I've seen, as well. About
$800.00 for the LDP-4200 compared with $1100.00 other places.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Dave Combs)
Subject: DBMS from Hypercard?
Date: 26 May 88 16:49:20 GMT

Can anyone offer any help with the following?  I need to find a
relational DBMS for the Mac which is callable from Hypercard
(presumably in an XCMD).  Does there exist, or is there information
on, or even rumors about, a function-callable DBMS with the following
characteristics?

1) It supports a reasonably complete query language.
2) It supports multi-attribute keys for a particular table.  (Lots of databases
   currently available seem to have problems with this one).  This is a
   MAJOR requirement - for my application a system without it is useless.
3) It's not so slow that a user would complain while it grinds away for
   minutes on some reasonably trivial search.

Note that I DON'T need simultaneous multi-user capability, or a particularly
interesting user interface (I won't use it), or many of the other bells and
whistles lots of the new systems seem to have.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (David M. Land)
Subject: Re: Animate?
Date: 26 May 88 16:54:52 GMT

> What is the recommended method for animating in hypercard.

If you just want to pick up a piece of a card's art, write a
script that selects the lasso tool, clicks at a point somewhere
near the edge of the object, drags around the object (this is the
hard part, if the object is complex, you have to type a lot of
drag coordinates), then clicks on the selected object, and drags
it along the animation path at whatever dragspeed is selected.
I've seen this work on a stack called "Talk Tools," available at
your friendly neighborhood BBS.  Mail me if you can't find it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Peter Steele)
Subject: Need Bibliography Management Software
Date: 26 May 88 17:01:09 GMT

A prof here wants some sort of program to manage bibliography and
reference material. Granted, something like Reflex, MS-File, Hypercard,
and a host of other programs could be "programmed" to do what he wants,
but he's more interested in a "canned" utility (i.e., something that
will require a minimal amount of learning). Does any such software
exist out there for this sort of thing (or even something close)? Has
anyone developed a Hypercard stack for this purpose? Any info would
be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: aisl@ur-tut (Larry Landry)
Subject: Re: Parameters to XCMDs
Date: 27 May 88 18:29:23 GMT

>If called with:       Put test(1,2) into someContainer
>the XFCN returns 2, as expected.  However, if the string 1,2 is in a container,

>a call such as:       Put test(field someField) into someOtherContainer
>returns garbage of the form :  W>>W>>W>> (etc.)

The problem is that the two lines you have pass different information into
your XCMD

test(1,2) passes 2 arguments into HyperCard.  The first is '1', and the
         second is '2'.

test(a) where a is '1,2' passes 1 argument into the XCMD that evaluates to
         '1,2'.

Therefore, your program is not getting a valid handle for the second argument.
You should instead use the line

test(item 1 of a, item 2 of a)

to pass in two arguments as you need.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Robert Steven Glickstein)
Subject: Re: Animate?
Date: 29 May 88 04:23:34 GMT

> If you just want to pick up a piece of a card's art, write a
> script that selects the lasso tool, clicks at a point somewhere
> near the edge of the object, drags around the object (this is the
> hard part, if the object is complex, you have to type a lot of
> drag coordinates), then clicks on the selected object, and drags
> it along the animation path at whatever dragspeed is selected.
> I've seen this work on a stack called "Talk Tools," available at
> your friendly neighborhood BBS.

The same technique is used in the "Frog Jumping" animation in the standard
HyperCard help stack.  It's under "HyperTalk", somewhere...

And here's a suggestion to avoid complex drag coordinates when selecting your
image.  Have a separate card for every single image you want to animate.  Lock
the screen, push the current card, go to the card with the desired image,
select the lasso tool, and drag around the four corners of the window.  Since
nothing else is on the card, this will select only the desired image.  Copy it,
pop a card, paste the image, unlock the screen, and then drag your image around.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Julian E Gomez)
Subject: Re: Animate?
Date: 29 May 88 04:23:34 GMT

" What is the recommended method for animating in hypercard.  I tried
" going to successive cards in a stack, waiting a few ticks at each
" card, starting from the openCard handler of the first card.  After about 6
" cards, however, I get the error "Too Much Recursion".  Why do I get
" this error and what does it mean?

Wouldn't it be easier (admittedly more expensive) to use
the VideoWorks HyperCard driver?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (John Boswell)
Subject: "set name of target" problem
Date: 31 May 88 04:49:03 GMT

        I've been trying to get the "popup menus" demonstration from the
latest MacTutor to work.  Everything works fine, with the following
exception:

set editbkgnd to true
domenu "New Field"
set name of bkgnd field "New Field" to theName

        This doesn't work, since unlike "New Button", there is no default
name for a "New Field".  Thus I have to put the following line after
domenu:

set the name of the target to "New Field"

but this doesn't work as expected!!!  It seems that what is returned for
"target" is the CARD id!!!  If I do:

get the target
put it

after domenu, i get "card id 3276" or whatever in the msg box!!!
What gives???  HOW do I set the name of this bkgnd field to "New Field" so
the rest of this script will work???

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: "set name of target" problem
Date: 31 May 88 17:20:32 GMT

>What gives???  HOW do I set the name of this bkgnd field to "New Field" so
>the rest of this script will work???

I think this should work.  Try:

    set name of last bkgnd field to theName

This relies on new fields being put last in the list.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (J Greely)
Subject: Re: "set name of target" problem
Date: 31 May 88 17:46:30 GMT

>set the name of the target to "New Field"

>but this doesn't work as expected!!!

Ah, yes.  "Name of the target".  I ran into this mess when I wanted to
say "number of lines in the target", which returns 1.  The correctly
convoluted syntax turned out to be "number of lines in field short name
of the target".  Unfortunately, your field doesn't have a name.

  My initial suggestion was that you try 'set the name of field id the
target to "New Field"'.  This is wrong.  Firing up HyperCard revealed
that the following script achieves what you want (in 1.1):

on MouseUp
  put last word of the target into temp
  set name of field ID temp to "New Field"
end MouseUp

If you try just saying 'set name of field ID last word of the target
to "New Field"', the name will change, but the script will bomb.
Apparently you cannot change "name of the target" directly.

>  It seems that what is returned for
>"target" is the CARD id!!!  If I do:

  Your other problem (testing in the message box) is buried in
Goodman's monster ("Volume 2 (I cut my copy in half at Part Three),
pg. 557): "If you try typing _the_target_ into the message box, it
will always return the current card's ID number, ..."

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (frigo)
Subject: Hypercard freezes after swap to 32-bit mode and back
Date: 31 May 88 11:32:43 GMT

We have written to XCMD's to swap to 32-bit mode and back. The code
works fine from MPW pascal. When the XCMD's are executed from within
Hypercard (that is, 32-bit addressing is entered, and immediately
after 24-bit addressing is restored) Hypercard freezes. We need the
32-bit mode to interface some electronics in conjunction with some
physics experiment.    Any hint?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Animate?
Date: 31 May 88 15:50:00 GMT

>going to successive cards in a stack, waiting a few ticks at each
>card, starting from the openCard handler of the first card.  After about 6
>cards, however, I get the error "Too Much Recursion".  Why do I get
>this error and what does it mean?

I assume you are using something like:

        on openCard
            <something> -- delay a while
            go next card
        end

If so, the openCard handlers are probably not getting closed.  The first
card's handler doesn't complete until you are at the next card; you aren't
at the next card until the openCard handler for the next card completes.
The openCard handler for the next card can't complete until you are at
the third card...

If this is indeed your problem, replace your openCard handlers with
a simple repeat loop:

        on animate
            repeat the number of cards
                <something> -- delay a while
                go next card
            end repeat
        end animate

This will avoid the recursion problem.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Benjamin Kuo)
Subject: Re: Animate?
Date: 30 May 88 15:10:36 GMT

  Would you mind posting a little script code, specifically the waiting a
few ticks, and the areas that give you "Too Much Recursion"?

  It may be your structuring of the ticks.  By the way, you really don't
need to wait for many ticks when you are animating--HyperCard takes awhile,
even on a larger meg machine, to load in the next card.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Dan Winkler)
Subject: Re: "set name of target" problem
Date: 1 Jun 88 14:58:15 GMT

That's right, after a doMenu "new field" you can refer the field as
"last field" or "last card field" if it's a card field.  The same
approach works for buttons.

The target is the object to which the message that is currently being
handled was sent.  If handler "foobar" examines "the target" it will
find out which object was first sent "foobar" before it inherited
down to its current handler.  The target does not change during the
execution of handler.  There is nothing a handler can do (you'd be
surprised by what people have tried) to change what it gets when
it evaluates "the target"

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Jeremy Bornstein)
Subject: LSC XCMD help please!
Date: 1 Jun 88 20:07:04 GMT

I am trying to get serious in the development of XCMDs, and am having a few
problems.  The header file "HyperXcmd.h" and the file "XcmdGlue.inc.c" as
provided by Apple do not work with Lightspeed C.  I succeeded in making them
*compile* by changing the header file away from the MPW prototype
declarations, and by changing the "MyProcPtr" typedef to an inline assembly
routine-- which is where I think the problem is.  The "MyProcPtr" as it was
seemed unworkable for Lightspeed, but it appears that my solution has gone
astray as well.  Would someone be kind enough to send me versions of the
abovementioned files which work in LSC?  (Sample code wouldn't be laughed at,
either.)  Much thanks in advance for help much hoped for.
Please reply to [e-mail], if possible, as mail on this machine
(where I receive H-H) is difficult and slow for me to read.  Thanks again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Help with: "Print Report..."
Date: 1 Jun 88 19:18:03 GMT

I have just recently developed a database which basically keeps a list
of all of our archived software. It runs perfectly except for one flaw.
I developed a print button that basically does a doMenu to Print Report.

           Is there any way to save the formats you define in the
           "Print Report..." setup so that every time you reboot, you
           do not have to re-configure them. I am sort of looking for some
           type of internal variables that will allow me to define
           (within the program) how long I want each column and which
           fields I want included.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Dan Allen)
Subject: Re: Hypercard freezes after swap to 32-bit mode and back
Date: 1 Jun 88 21:10:52 GMT

HyperCard has known problems with running in 32-bit mode.  HyperCard
will not currently run under A/UX, for example, which DOES run the Mac
II in 32 bit mode.  We are looking into fixing this, but as of release
1.2, HC simply will not work in 32-bit mode.  No promises as to when...

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Al Peterman)
Subject: Need Airport Database
Date: 2 Jun 88 06:31:07 GMT

  Does anyone know where to acquire a database of airport information.
What we need is the information in the Airports Facilities Directory in
a format that can be converted to MacIntosh Hypercard.  Essentials include
latitude, longitude, airport name, identifier and hopefully runway lenghts.
It would be nice to have any other info available such as radio frequencies,
altitude etc.

  If neccessary, we can convert from IBM format data, if we can get the
data in IBM format.  That will require some conversion work, but ought to
be possible...

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Dale M. Arends X5706)
Subject: Print Report Problem...
Date: 2 Jun 88 14:27:46 GMT

I have a small stack that consists of 1 background and 45 cards.  The
background has about 10 fields for (unlocked) text.  When I try to
Print Report... it says that it prepares 2 pages, but when actually printing,
the first page is blank except for the header and footer.  The second page
prints ok and starts from card 24, as it should.  I have selected 7 of
the 10 fields to be printed.

If I change the format from Rows to 2x2 Columns, all of the data is printed.

Does anyone have any idea what is wrong?  Thanks..

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Steven Martin)
Subject: Bug in HC 1.2
Date: 2 Jun 88 19:10:32 GMT

Using Hypercard vers 1.2 I have found that the Command-Option-B
shortcut to edit the background script (and the card and script
shortcuts) don't work under Multifinder.  All I get is a beep.  They
work fine with just Finder.

Can someone verify this bug or do I have some conflict with an init.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Robert Steven Glickstein)
Subject: More naive user help needed
Date: 3 Jun 88 09:44:30 GMT

I cannot seem to find this anywhere in the docs.

I have a stack where, when you click the mouse inside a field, a picture is
supposed to be placed at the clickLoc.  I'd like to do this by having the
picture on its own card.  When the user clicks, the screen gets locked, the
card gets pushed, the picture card is fetched, the picture copied, the card
popped, and the picture pasted back in the right spot.

I cannot figure out how to place the picture in the right spot.  When you do a
domenu "Paste Picture", where does hypercard put it?  If I knew, I could drag
it to where I wanted it.  What's the answer?


ACTION> lis 2