Re: carbonized MetaCard
>... >the MetaCard "carbonization" >process is already done, and so it shouldn't be too long a wait before >we'll be able to start public testing of the new engine. ...and Scott gets a huge standing ovation from the crowd! >But you should keep in mind that the final release of Mac OS X is >many, many months away and while it might make a good development >platform before then, there probably won't be a large enough installed >base to bother with making distributions for that platform until >sometime next year. It'll make a superb development platform, but there's one more thing... being able to make a Carbonized standalone with MetaCard is HUGE right now. There's such a lack of applications available for OS X, any app that's carbonized will get a large following from people who have "upgraded" to the beta (at least, that's in a hypothetical, optimistic world! :) I've been waiting to purchase the OS X beta until I can run my good ol' MetaCard in it... releasing the carbonized engine would get me going releasing all sorts of programs, and give everyone in the MetaCard community a big boost in the credentials department. Thanks for getting this done, and here's to getting this public testing started ASAP! (tomorrow I place the order for OS X!) > Regards, > Scott > > > Brian -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: htmlText - problem and feature request...
> > An htmlClickChunk property which would return the same as the >clickChunk but >> something appropriate to the htmlText. Similar properties would eventually >> needed for other Metacard expression (hence the idea of a single function >> above). > >It should be possible to do this with the existing HTML text features >as soon as we get hidden tags implemented. I'm not sure yet whether >even totally useless stuff (like tags) will be retained, but >certainly stuff like HREF tags will be. > Regards, > Scott When will this feature be implemented? Relatively soon (2.3.x) , or will a major overhaul be needed? I'll need a technique to keep these kinds of tags for a project, but if MC will natively support keeping most tags, I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if you guys already are :) Thanks! -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Windows CE...
>Hello, > >I wondered (again): Is there a engine for Windows CE? Or Micro- Linuxes for >palmtops? I was just about to mention this on the list, after I thought about this: The Sega Dreamcast has the logo "Powered by Windows CE" on the front... I'm guessing it has the entire operating system loaded onto it somewhere. If MetaCard ran on Windows CE... and if there'd be an easy way to burn a CD that would kind of "tell" the DreamCast to load this program into Windows CE and run it... we're talking Dreamcast development platform here:-) Would this be possible? I don't know if there'd be legal issues or not, since I'm not sure if each Dreamcast developer needs to be licensed or authorized... but to be able to develop programs for the Dreamcast with MC... I don't think I need to explain how truly awesome this would be... "Here, just pop this into a Dreamcast, play it, tell me what you think." It could even be used as a cheap presentation tool, if hooked up to a projector! Phew! -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Spherical Photos
> >> Is there any way to "drive" spherical photos inside Metacard? > >Sounds like you might want QuickTime VR... QuickTime VR is great, but it currently only supports panoramas, not fully-spherical images. Rumor has it that QuickTime VR in QuickTime 5 (not currently released, but in beta testing, I hear) will have full 360 degree rotation. Also, you could put the image into a group, set the rect of the group to a window, and scroll around with it using a mouseMove command, comparing the last mouseLoc with the current one. Of course, you probably couldn't do a full "rotation" since you'd hit the top, right, left, and bottom edges, and without any perspective effects. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
HyperCard at MacWorld expo article
Here's an article I read at MacCentral today about HyperCard users making a booth and conferences at the MacWorldSF 2001 expo: http://www.maccentral.com/news/0009/05.hypercard.shtml I posted my thoughts about MetaCard.. and many people still don't seem to know about MetaCard and its advantages (one look at the message boards on the page with a title of "We need a new HyperCard" and "SuperCard" show it...) . An interesting read, and maybe you'll feel the urge to post something... -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Mac registry...?
>Karl Becker wrote:
>
>> In fact, just storing the preferences in the same directory as the
>> stack itself helps a lot... moving the program from one computer to
>> the next is a lot easier, and you don't have to futz with a separate
>> Registry on Windows and making a text file on Mac... just have a
>> file, prefs.txt or something, that you can read any user-defined
>> preferences from.
>
>Bad idea. The reason preferences are stored in the user's preference
>folder in their system folder, is so multiple users can access the same
>application over a network without breaking each other's settings.
I knew that when I wrote that e-mail... why I still wrote that I'm
not sure why. :)
I haven't had to work with big networked programs of any sort, so I
haven't had the need (yet) for prefs file in the system folder... but
it would be VERY nice to have that command built in to MetaCard...
simply "put the prefsPath into theFilePath, put "My App Preferences"
after theFilePath" oooh, that's nice!
>
>(Strictly speaking, its each *machine* rather than each *user* that gets
>its own prefs, but for most Mac users this is equivalent.)
Oh, that gets me wondering... does MetaCard have any way to do
separate preferences files for multiple users in OS 9 (and then, I'm
sure, OS X) ? Being able to support multiple users would be quite a
boon to people with MC applications ("OS 9 enhanced!") .
--
Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino,
http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks
|
| Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl!
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Re: Mac registry...?
>Leston Drake wrote: > >> You missed the point ;-). You're thinking of the Windows registry as a >> mechanism for storing information on what application to use to launch a >> certain file type. This is only one purpose of the Windows registry. >> Application developers use it as a generally accessible database for storing >> any type of (developer-defined!) information for an application. >>In my case, I > > need to store the path to the installed application. > >... >But maybe you are checking to see where the installation was in order to >find out later if the app has been moved; if so, you'd probably want to >store the original path in a preferences file in the system folder. You could simply write a text file in the same folder (or one level down) as the program to hold the path to the stack. The first time you install it, write the path to a file named mainpath.txt and see if it's the same as when you installed the program. In fact, just storing the preferences in the same directory as the stack itself helps a lot... moving the program from one computer to the next is a lot easier, and you don't have to futz with a separate Registry on Windows and making a text file on Mac... just have a file, prefs.txt or something, that you can read any user-defined preferences from. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Tooltip text size
I just realized something... is there any way to change the text size/font/style of tooltips? For Mac, for instance, the tooltip text is bigger than it usually is (usually it's 9 pt, but it's around 12 or 14 in MC) . This could be quite helpful! Also, anyone interested in making add-ons for New Tricks? I got a sum total of zero responses to that last (albeit long-winded) e-mail :) -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
New Tricks (re MetaCard plugins)
Recently there's been discussion on the MetaCard list about getting some sort of program out there that could run MetaCard stacks, while still doing a mainstream computing task. One suggestion has been a web browser. I started up, prior to this discussion, on a word processor in MetaCard that I wanted to allow plug-ins to be written for. The word processor is called "New Tricks," I'll be pushing it as a "Cross-platform word-processor with add-on capability." (so there will probably be on available for every platform MetaCard is available for) , and the "plug-ins" (which I call add-ons in New Tricks) for it are MetaCard stacks. I'd like to invite anyone to stop by the New Tricks web site (the url is not open to the general public yet) at: <http://karlbecker.com/newtricks/> and download the developer SDK for whichever platform (hopefully the Windows and UNIX sdks work... I've only tried the Mac version, but I think the Windows and UNIX one should work, too) . <http://karlbecker.com/newtricks/addons/dev/> This SDK includes just small things, including the basic handler you have to have in your stack to make it work in New Tricks - "startupAddon". Other than that, the stack is just like any other (except that it doesn't show the window unless you specify in the stack's script to show it) . Any metacard stack could be run in New Tricks with just that tiny addition. If anyone's interested in developing the following add-ons that I'd really like to have for the launch, e-mail me directly: a spell-checker (it would be the "Czech Mai Spelling" that I mention on the web site) , a quicktime media viewer (I'd really like to have something like a playlist for quicktime media in it - and this would be the "FastPlay" I mention on the site) , a tool to insert pictures in files (I save files as HTML, so some kind of inserter of some sort...) . And I really want to hear new ideas for add-ons! I'll be releasing New Tricks the program relatively soon - in the next couple of weeks, as soon as beta testing is all done (it may even be sooner) . The Mac versions (separate 68K and PPC) will be released first, followed by Windows, and then the rest of the platforms (Linux and Solaris being towards the top) . (if anyone would like to beta test the Windows, Unix, and other platform versions, drop me a note) I'm planning to really push the program as soon as there is a good number (say, 10 - 15) of add-ons. I'm working on a couple, and I'd appreciate anyone else who would create some! I'd love to hear everyone's ideas on this! This may be the way to get MetaCard stacks out there in a big way! (Instead of making someone download the MC player, just have them say "run this as an add-on inside of New Tricks".) Let some sort of discussion (and action!) begin! :-) -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, and New Tricks | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Opening files on Mac
Okay, I'm just finishing up this word processing program (which may be of interest to the MetaCard community... more on this in just a couple of days) , but I'm having one problem with it. I build an application out of it, and I set its creator type as a custom type ( "NTTX" in this case ) . Now, when I save a word-processing file from the program, I set its file type as "NTTXNTTX" , and everything works fine. However, when I double-click the file in the Finder, it opens up the application, but it, of course, won't load the file of creator/file type "NTTXNTTX". My question is: is there a message that's sent to a stack when you double-click a file in the finder and it opens in the application? Something like "openFile" instead of "openStack" or something... I just need to intercept the filepath so I can do the appropriate stuff with the file's contents (displaying it in the main word-processing field and such) . Hope I explained this well enough... if not, just say. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Standalone builder
>First off, many thanks to all those who responded pointing me to >tools>standalone builder... >One additional question I forgot to ask is, I'm building apps on my >macintosh. Can I assume that the >standalones I build will also run under Win43 and Unix? You need to select the appropriate "MetaCard engine" for the Windows and Unix versions. MetaCard.com has the things to download, and since you're on a Mac, you can download them all and build them all up real nice-like. Of course, you'll want to test them on a real Unix and Win computer, too unexpected things can happen, I've noticed, although not very often! > >Jim Kelly > > >Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ >Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm >Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Text menu
Well, okay, here's my question: how can one get the "Text" menu that's in the regular MetaCard program to be in a stack's toolbar? I just don't see where you can do submenus with MetaCard... and also, it'd be really easy if I could just keep MetaCard's own Text menu, since that has all the necessary script to, say, change the font size when you go Text->Size->12 or whatever. Thanks in advance! -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Sprite Libraries
> > On the other hand, how far away is the move command from being able to a >> reasonable number (from an arcade standpoint--maybe ten to thirty) of >> objects moving around at the same time? Would it take a 1000 mhz >> processor, or a 100, mhz processor? :-) I'm curious if anyone has >> given it a try. I have. On one game I'm working on (visiting my site would pretty much tell you, but I want to kinda keep it quiet for right now :) , where ten sprites are moving around the screen (they're small, only 48 x 48 pixels I think) , it works fast 'n fine on my 333 MHz G3. I've tried it someon an old 60MHz PPC sitting beside me, and even there, toning the people down to, say, one or two, it still works speedy. Of course, I'm not even using the move command with this. I just realized from this post that I could be using "send "move image theSprite to 200,300 in 5 seconds" to this card in 2 ticks" would get the same result, mostly, as what I'm currently doing, which is getting the sprite's location, adding an x,y slope, checking if it's hit anything, and then manually setting the person's loc sending this whole function every three ticks to get it to look smooth. It's quite proc intensive with many people on the screen, and the one thing that slows it down is when you create a new image and set the fileName to a file on the disk. Using a move command to start the person moving, then just checking every five ticks or so to see if the sprite's loc is within a group of noop-inked graphics I call "collisionGroup" , that could be much easier. I think that last paragraph was really confusing... you can probably just ignore it, or e-mail to explain it better. :) > >I haven't tried it myself, but overall I've been very impressed with >MetaCard's unprecedented interpreter speed. Given the mix of animated >GIFs, the move command, and timers, I wouldn't be surprised if you got the >same results using native MetaTalk that RB provides in this third-party >package, and possibly even more given RB's lack of support for animation >loops for sprites. > Yes, very much so. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
oops
>>Now would be a good time for anyone else wanting to be on the beta program >>to drop us a note asking to be added to the list... > >Hehe, me. :) > Sorry, I replied to the entire list... sheesh... oops. Apologies all around for everyone having to now download two extra messages :P -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re:
>Now would be a good time for anyone else wanting to be on the beta program >to drop us a note asking to be added to the list... Hehe, me. :) If you'd like specs, I'm on a beige G3 @ 333MHz, Mac OS 9.0.4, 192MB RAM, and currently using MetaCard 2.2.5, not 2.3, since I haven't renewed my subscription yet... d'oh. This seems like an incredibly cool thing you're doing, so I'd love to be part of it! Thanks! -- Karl Becker, KB Productions | Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, http://www.karlbecker.com | The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... | | Also featuring un-cut writings of Karl! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re:
>>I am a Macintosh HyperCard/SuperCard developer who is considering >>MetaCard because of its cross-platform capabilities. >> >>Suppose I produce a Macintosh standalone application with a >>Macintosh version of MetaCard. How do I convert that product to a >>Windows standalone? Do I need a Windows version of MetaCard? Do I >>have to use a WinTel computer? > >It is possible to produce the Windows standalone without actually >having Windows, but it is best to at least check it out afterwards. >Your choice is either use a Windows PC or something like Virtual PC >with Windows as required. Mac-based MetaCard developers seem to use >a mixture of these approaches. I myself test out my games for Windows in Virtual PC (don't bring up the fact I've never actually released any games for Windows! The MetaCard app actually works for Windows, I just haven't got around to setting up the appropriate papers and stuff.) . Works slick, since my games don't require too much horsepower, and I have a G3... a G4 with velocity would work even better, I suppose... not sure how much > >As an ex HyperCard/SuperCard developer, I've found the move to >MetaCard very worthwhile for a whole number of reasons, not the >least of which is this superb list which never seems to fail to come >up with solutions in record time! Same here. I was amazed... even the old HyperCard mailing list (I'm sure still exists) never had responses like the ones I see on here. This is just plain amazing, guys... thanks to everyone who contributes! > >The plus points for MetaCard are: >... >- extremely helpful and responsive e-mail list A huge kudos to that... no, more of a kudos... a statue should be dedicated to the mailing list. One with a big... uh... hmm... we can decide what to put on it later :) > >On the downside: >... >- development environment rather intimidating (new one under >development through Xworlds should be a lot better) >- incomplete documentation, often making it hard to even guess what >should be done (again, being addressed by MetaCard Corp and Xworlds) Hey, I remember seeing some screens of this awhile ago... how are the XWorlds people coming along with that, anyhow? Love to hear where it is right now! >- lack of "street credibility and knowledge" - too few people know >what a great tool it is and so you end up having to sell it to your >customers as a "good thing" Well, that's can be a good thing or bad thing. You can say, "it's a really up-and-coming thing... you'll be on the leading edge with this powering your software." My personal favorite line is, "You ever heard of HyperCard? With the stacks and all?" They usually respond to the affirmative, and usually say something like, "That was kinda neat." Then you just respond with some superlative, such as, "Then this will blow your pants off. Really." :L) > >I had to gulp at the entry fee ($995 + $300 pa thereafter to keep up >to date - half these costs if you're academic) as a single developer, That reminds me, I've got to renew my subscription for 2.3 :) -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... Also: Karl Becker's un-cut writings! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Mac OS X, Windows, etc...
>Greetings again, list. ... > >Anyway, in a totally perfect world, we'd have a beta version of MetaCard for >OS X BEFORE OS X came out. Then we'd be able to come out with OS X >applications shortly after OS X was released, which would give us MetaCard >developers a jump on everyone else. Hmm... would this be so hard to do? Since OS X (do a lot of people, like me, still pronounce it oh-ess-ex?) is based on one flavor of UNIX (sheesh, I'm forgetting it today... FreeBSD? I'm not even exactly sure what that is. :) ) , I think it'd be easy for the MC people to port over one of their UNIX distributions to run natively in OS X... at least the OS X that includes the BSD layer. The whole interface thing and carbon compliant, that may be a little tricky to do... but, since I don't have much of an idea what that consists of... *opens the floor to someone else* -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month... Also: Karl Becker's un-cut writings! Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: open url
... >I am not surprised you could not find the >answer in the archives. I think only the last 2 or 3 weeks of entries >are available (at least, that's all I could find the last time I tried >searching for something.) Woo, every message from the archive from Dec of last year in Eudora here! (Other people have me beat out, I'm sure) Er... wait... that may be an invitation to be asked by everyone for old messages... uh... disregard that. ;) > >-- >Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] >HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com >612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax > >Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ >Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm >Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Icons with Transparency
>I would like some tips on using transparency on icons. I am importing GIF >files into icons. What is the best tool to set up transparency in GIF files >on the PC? I want some areas transparent but some other areas opaque. Hmmm... any regular graphics program can do transparency in a gif file... for Mac, GraphicConverter is a necessity... not sure about anything for Windows... anyone know of good graphics apps that are for Windows? Also, as far as importing, I'm not sure if gifs keep their transparency when you import them... someone should know... wow, this reply was absolutely filled with no helping at all! :) >Larry Huisingh -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: large Images
>I have a very large image, way larger than the card. I set the size to >smaller than the card then group and add scroll bars. Now what I want to >do is have the students scroll the image locating different objects in >the image. When they think they have located the correct object they are >to then click on the object. If I get the clickloc the result is >different depending on exactly where the object is relative to the >visible shrunken image. Is there any way to get the location of the >click relative to the overall size of the image. The simplest thing to do would be to create a couple graphic objects on top of where the students should click (over those objects) , then set their ink to noop so they're transparent. Then you could just stick some script into the graphics' mouseup handler. However, if there's some need for the clickloc, you can change the clickloc to what it is compared to the entire group by doing something like this: put the mouseLoc into quickLoc add the hscroll of group "myGroup" to item 1 of quickLoc add the vscroll of group "myGroup" to item 2 of quickLoc Now quickLoc will hold where on the entire image they clicked... for instance, let's say on the screen they clicked at 150,200. But if it was scrolled 10 pixels to the left and 20 pixels down, the location for the entire image would be 160,220. Kinda get it? Hope I didn't confuse you too much! :) > > Thanks > Rick > Education Technology Group > Sciences, Health Sciences > University College of the Cariboo > >Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ >Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm >Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Tab into field
Hmm... strange, but this behavior keeps happening. I'm typing in a field, and I want to be able to hit tab to go to the next field. That happens and everything... but it doesn't select the text in the next field. I'd like it to act how text fields on web pages (some web pages, anyway) do. How could I get this accomplished? Trying to intercept a tab in keyDown isn't working... ideas will be appreciated! -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: Portable Mouse Movement?
> > My desktop Mac (a > > G3/300 uprated clone) and my PowerBook both run MacOS 8.6, have the >> same amount of RAM (128Mb), and identical copies of the MetaCard > > "Player" (I've copied from one system to the other to be sure). I've >> tried both MC 2.2.5 and MC 2.3 gamma. Both versions work fine with > > my desktop Mac (and with my laptop Win 98 PC), but not my PowerBook??? >... > >Anybody else with a PowerBook see this? You should be able to test it >with something as simple as the following in the Message Box: >set the screenMouseLoc to 10,10 Well, here on my G3 333 minitower (last of the beiges!) , it doesn't work. I remember trying it awhile ago, and it worked fine. That was when I was running 8.1. I now have Mac OS 9 (believe me, if you're running pre 8.5, get it... it's great!) , and it doesn't work worth beans. I am using a third party (macally) ADB mouse, but I highly doubt that's it. The problem is mac os 9 specific, I'm sure. I believe there's something about Mac OS 9 taking away quite a few functions of QuickDraw, one including the ability to delay the updating of a window. However, apps that do that will just crash instantly in 9... maybe you wanna check if that's anywhere in there scott, eh? :) > Regards, > Scott > >PS: I don't really understand the engine code that does this, but do >know that it's one of the things that isn't Carbon compliant and so >will have to be changed... You're probably thinking the same as me... you guys would know the actual code problems, I suppose... if not, talk to the apple. -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: MC & OS 9
>Is MC 2.3 compatible with Mac OS 9? I haven't tried it yet. Yup, it is. Using 2.2.5 still, but 2.3 worked fine for me the little bit I used it. > >-- >Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] >HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com >612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax > >This is the MetaCard mailing list. >Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ >Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm -- Karl Becker, KB Productions http://www.karlbecker.com Featuring Tiger's Eye Casino, The Fishin' Hole, & One Boring Month This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Re: 3D Graphics Engine
>I remember earlier this year when I used Hypercard and not metacard. >I ran into a hypercard games site, 2 people were creating this skiing >game. The most amazing thing was that it was complete 3d graphics and >they had it running around 30 frames a second! Haha, amazing. Funny how things come full circle. That was me and Jason Kim, a fellow who hasn't been doing too much in the realm of hypercard (nor metacard) recently. It was a snowboarding game called "White Powder Boarding." However, the 3D game was being done in C, not Hyper/MetaCard. The Hyper/MetaCard project was a 2D, top-down game, that actually I have a copy of on my hd running in MetaCard. It features live scrolling... hmm... maybe I should see if I could finish this sometime... it was pretty cool, actually... >So doing a 3d game in Metacard may be possible, The hypercard game used >an XCMD and I think metcard has the possiblity to use HyperCards XCMDs. Actually, I guess you're partially right. In HyperCard, we tried to use an external by Anthony DeRobertis called AnimIcon (the best external I've seen for fast color in HC, at http://users.erols.com/derobert/AnimIcon/ ) and get a semi-3D engine running in that. It would've been like Pole Position, 2D images flying at the person, you moving your guy left and right. If I'm not mistaken, it worked somewhat decently... of course, not fast or slick in any sense of the word, but "worked." :) >But who would really have the time to make a 3d game in MetaCard, if >you were really interested use C/C++ its not worth the trouble in MC. Well, I guess the remnants of that experimental 3D phase are in the form of Another Fishin' Hole, the sequel to my original fishing game. Hmmm... I haven't looked at that in a long time, either. Pics of it are up at <http://webhost.btigate.com/~funkboy/fishing/screens.shtml> ... they're taken from HyperCard, using the AnimIcon external. I put it into MetaCard... it turned out quite well, except for the face that since there's no raw drawing into a GWorld, there were about 500 images on the card... hmmm... :) Wow, this got way too long... > >Jeremy Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Home of Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: 3D Graphics Engine
>>Some time ago I remember many list members kicking around the >>idea of having a 3D engine work with MetaCard. > >I guess it's very hard to find a 3D engine which would be usable in >MetaCard. Anyone know one which would work even in one OS? Boy, this sure interests me a lot. However, to actually run it in a scripting language would be painfully slow (if you had to do every single thing in just the script language) . Still, if anyone has any ideas, many of us would love to hear about it! >> I ran into an interesting article that pointed me towards the Unreal 3D >> game company. > >I think the license to use Unreal 3D engine is tens of thousands of US >dollars, if not hundreds of thousands. Hmmm... maybe we can pool some money together... =) Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Home of Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: sound/floppy/e-mail
Hi there, Nicolas! >I'm scripting a standalone for a 12 year old student to use at home for >remedial work on learning letter-sound correspondences, and was looking >for list advice about: > >1. the safest sound-file format and attribute-combination (Hz, >8bit/16bit, mono/stereo) for Win or Mac; As Warren said before, 8 bit 22KHz should be fine. >2. how to receive feedback about student performance. The only two >non-paper scenarios I can envision are: > > [a] saving to floppy. Does MC have a save-file dialog (like MSWord's), >or will I need to know beforehand the directory letter for the floppy >drive on my student's home computer? Yes. To write something to a file, look up the "ask" command in the metatalk reference. A sample script would be something like this: ask file "Type in a name for your feedback document." with "feedback.txt" put it into theFilePath open file theFilePath for write write field "feedbackText" to file theFilePath close file theFilePath > [b] e-mail. Assuming the student is on-line while the stack is up, is >there a one-click way for an MC standalone to send text as e-mail, or am >I looking at something more complex here? (Note: all I have is an e-mail >account.) Hmmm... someone else should help you with this, not sure. Hope the above helped, tho! >Thank you. > >-- >Nicolas R Cueto >Takakura JHS/SHS >Nagoya, Japan Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Home of Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Redrawing objects in groups
Hmmm... I'm having a very strange thing happening. On two separate cards, with two totally different scripts, I have some images in a group (let's call it "mainGroup") that I delete after a little while. After some scripts happen and such, I eventually delete the images with the line delete image "cool"& whichLine where whichLine is a number that gets added to in this little repeat loop. The problem I'm having is simple: once I delete the images, the window doesn't seem to redraw, since the image is still there, but when I change the vScroll or hScroll (or make a new image, or do anything else) the image disappears. This oddity does NOT happen when I make the images outside of the group, however. Of course, wouldn't you know it, I need to have the images be created and deleted both inside the group, and stay in the group. How could I get it so the window updates how it should? Many, uh, heartfelt thanks =) Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Home of Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: preventing arrow-key navigation
>>When I inadvertantly hit my keyboard's up/down arrow-keys, I was >>surprised--and then distressed!--to see me moving between substacks. >>Short of ripping out all the arrow-keys from my school's computers, how >>do I prevent these or any other unbidden navigational key-events? > >Hi Nicolas > >set the navigationArrows to false Also, you can put two lines of script into the Stack's script: on arrowKey end arrowKey This was the old HyperCard way of stopping people from browsing... but with a specific property in place for just this thing, it'd be better to use the property, especially since the property cancels the "home" and "end" buttons, as well. So maybe this e-mail was pointless... :) Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Putting object into group
Okay, I give up... I can't seem to get something like this to work: put image "myCoolImage" into group "theBestGroupEver" Grrr, maybe I'm just totally inept... maybe I'm just overlooking something really simple? Thanks in advance... sheesh... feel dumb I'm asking this... :) Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
MetaCard w/ Mac OS 9?
So, I'm sure someone on the list pre-ordered mac os 9 and has it already... maybe even bought it from somewhere. The big question... does MetaCard work fine with it? performance hits or helps? maybe scott knows? :) and thanks, since this'll decide when I upgrade. ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Quick-loading gifs
Real fast: how can I speed up loading of gif images? I'm guessing the "prepare" command will do nothing, since I'm using the gifs (which are animated, and only have 4/100ths interframe delay) as "image"s. They're accessed using the fileName where it just goes "thefolder/thepic.gif" without the excess hd info... not sure how else I could speed it up... anyway to store these gifs in memory and put them on an image extra quick? Thanks! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: HTML in emails
>> I'm sure I'm tilting at windows here, but I wish people wouldn't include >> HTML codes in their emails. > >Heartily seconded. Heh, thirded, as well. I read a very good article in Publish magazine about a subject related to this. The following URL gets yhou it (talking about how formatting just dresses up content) . http://www.publish.com/opinion/9903/opinion.html Enjoy... ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: Something like pointers?
>Actually, there is something very much like pointers: the "Do" command:
>
>on mouseUp
> put "myVar" into pointerVar
> put "some value" into sourceVar
> do ("put sourceVar into" && pointerVar)
> answer myVar
>end mouseUp
Hah, cool! Thank you! That's just what I wanted... however, in the past
two days, I've converted everything to arrays anyway. :) But I'm
glad I can do it in mc anyway. Thanks!
Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/
Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino,
MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: Something like pointers?
>It might be. It might also be a source of endless confusion ;-) That I agree with. :) as well as :P >Certainly you'd have to have some special syntax to distinguish the >cases where you intended to use a reference (like * or & in >C/C++/Java). Right. Since * is used for multiplication, & is used for concatating strings (is that how you spell that?) , and we don't want to confuse an "easy-to-use" scripting language... well, maybe this was a tricky subject... over to the xTalk mailing list... :) Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Something like pointers?
Okay, another question... While making a card game (blackjack, specifically) , I've run into a little problem. I have a few different variables: player1Hand, player2Hand, player3Hand, and so on. In the script, I initialize all of them to 0, just to make it easier. However, after getting which player the dealer should deal to next, well... I put the following to find the loc of where to deal the card: get "player"& whichPlayerToDealTo &"Hand" put the value of it into quickHand --quickHand just a catch-all for all --hands used only for a short time However, there must be a better way than this. All those "get blahblah"s are annoying. Even worse, I can't put the value of quickLoc back into playerXLoc, since something like the following does not work: get "player"& whichPlayerToDealTo &"Hand" put quickHand into it So my question: how can I have the contents of a variable point to a variable name? If there isn't an indirection operator in MC already (which I don't think there is) , maybe it'd be nice to have one? (It'd be GREAT for me to have one... and yes, I know I could be putting all the values in some array or chunk of text like playerHandValues[2] for player2Hand. I'd rather see if there's an indirection thing first.) Thanks much! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Script editor... ack!
Ack! Nooo! I was working on this big script, and I was just flipping back to the card layer to check on the name of this field (hadn't saved the script of the button I was editing yet) . As I was looking, well.. I'm not even sure how it happened, but I command-option clicked on the button whose script I was editing. A script editor window popped up. "Oh, fine, okay." But NO! It was the OLD script that I had been typing on for the past hour! CK! So... how about putting a change on this for 2.3? or 2.3.1? or even 2.2.6? :) (namely, if you click it, it just goes to the window you were already editing in... it does this in hypercar, I believe... don't know why I clicked on it, either, guess twas just a moment of utter dumbness... :P ) ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
MetaCard & Flash
Well, this is just a crazy idea, but I would think a novel one: Wouldn't it just be great if MetaTalk would be rolled into Macromedia's Flash? MetaCard already has support for vectors, so if you rolled Flash's rasterizing and animation components into MetaCard... you'd have one sweet ride of a web development tool. Of course, it probably wouldn't be natively supported on UNIX... is there a unix plugin of flash? I suppose so... not sure... just an idea, though...maybe an uneccesary one... 2 pennies, if nothing else... ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: MetaCard om mac windows emulation
>> My question; I do not have a PC at home, nor room for one, does MetaCard >> run on windows emulators on a mac? If so does anyone have an opinion on >> which is best? > >I chose SoftWindows98 because emulation is the primary focus of Insignia. I have Virtual PC 2.1 with Windows 95 here (got it for free with a special offer from Apple) . I'm running on a 333 G3 here, and I have to say it performs well... when not running any programs. However, when I want to run stacks in it with MetaCard, it, well... it gets slow. :) >Emulation is okay for limited testing, but after enjoying G3 >speed in the native Mac OS switching into emulated Win98 is like dropping >down to a Pentium 70MHz Yup, this is about it. It's usable to test stacks to see if they actually work in Windows... one problem is that I've had some very erratic problems with making standalones. Maybe it's with my relative stupidity on Microsoft's OS specifics. However, one question for anyone on the group: how do you set a custom icon for a Windows program? That's all I have left to do to make my fishing game cross-platform... having it Mac only for 2 years has made Mac people happy, but I think it's time to let the other 90% of the world play it (and, eventualy, but it ;) ) . Thanks in advance! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: menuPick
> The MetaCard engine is cool enough for the money, but the support has > been a mind-bending good time (how on earth does Raney stay on top of all > his email?). >> > >I say Amen to that! Scott has been a great help to me a number of times. >One time in particular I was working late on a project and posted a note >about midnight CST. Twenty minutes later, there was a reply from Scott. I >don't know when he sleeps! Hah! Yes! Scott's involvement is so much better than support from some companies (apparently some people are quite angry at MetaCreations and how they announced Carrara... so nice to come to a friendly place with such a great guy like Scott. Millions of thanks! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: MetaCard 2.3: first public alpha-test release
Public alpha?! Woo hoo! Dankeschon! haven't been on the list much, but do you usually do a public alpha test? if not, I commend mc on its choice here! (Just having been alerted of Carrara by MetaCreations (replacement of sorts for Ray Dream Studio) ... well, there are plenty of angry people on that list...) watch as the servers get all filled up... Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: Card Basics
>I've xplatted piles of apps in Director; the principles asked about here >apply... Cheers to all the suggestions given. Just one thing: >> 3. Is it possible to deploy a stand alone application on a 3.5" floppy? > If you're going to be making this a cross-platform project, put it on CD. All new shipping Apple computers (iMac, blue/white power mac, PowerBook, and (drool) iBook) don't have 3.5" floppy drives! However, if you want it to be TRULY cross-platform, and factor in unix-flavored machines, put it on floppy, as well. Maybe have an order option where people can order a set of floppies for $5 extra or whatever. Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: SoundChannels
>Try "play videclip yoursoundfile.wav" on the Mac. Start-up times are >a little long with that now, but it will allow you to play multiple >sounds at the same time. And the good news is that the player object >in 2.3 pretty much takes care of the delay problem because it prerolls >the media files. Ah, yes! Perfect! Thank you ten times over! Listen to that... people yawning, gasping, and some lady saying "oh no!" all at the same time! :) Thanks! (and getting rid of the slight delay would be even better...woo hoo!) > Regards, > Scott ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: SoundChannels
>In windows you can use MCIsendstring to play multiple wav sounds at a >time. Hmmm... that'll work for any Windows games, then. That's good. Now I need something for Mac, since that's the platform I'm making it on... But thanks for the comment, I'll hang on to it! -------- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: SoundChannels
>midi and wav use different channels so you can indeed have navigation >clicks with bg music at the same time. I recently geeked up (?) a >multimedia photo slideshow with background midi music plus voiceover >narrative for a client. Just gotta choose your media formats carefully. Can't. If you have a game where you need multiple people talking and chatting to create a realistic, real-life atmosphere, you can't use midis or quicktime's in the background. If there is a way where you could play a quicktime movie as fast as playing a wav sound with the "play" command, then playing a bunch of quicktimes simultaneously would work... So maybe there's the way... if MetaCard can open a ".wav" file as a quicktime movie as fast as it can with the "play" command, then soundchannels won't be necessary. Otherwise, I'll have to whine and complain, because once the roulette ball has dropped in my game, it sounds really goofy for it to go "Ack!" "No!" "I won!" one after another. I want it to be like real life, where people all talk at once, so it sounds like a real crowd. Hope we can get something working... Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
SoundChannels
Okay... a request for MetaCard 2.3 (or any relatively soon upgrade) : soundchannels. They're the most useful things I can think of for a program that does sound. Is this a wanted feature? It sure is for me... so many uses for it in games... and other utilities... an idea. Hopefully it gets implemented! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: Within a polygon
>Correct. You can use within(), the target(), and the mouseControl() >with these. If you don't want to see the fill, set the ink of the >graphic to "noop" using the color chooser. > Regards, >Scott >Use "within" to check if a point is within the visible area of an object. For >example, > >on mouseUp > if within(graphic "My Polygon", the clickLoc) then put "inside" else put >"outside" >end mouseUp > >will tell you whether you clicked inside or outside the visible area. Hah! Thank you everyone! I'm still stuck back in HyperCard... still thought that "within" was only for a rect... nice coding, MetaCard team! :) >Well, if you're in a square or rectangle, the question is moot. > >What is it you'd like to determine, specifically? Well, actually, just to let you all know, it's for a casino game I'm working on. I asked this just in wondering about the roulette table, but it will also be used for many other places. Thanks much everyone! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Within a polygon
Okay, here's my big question: how is it the easiest (and quickest, for that matter) way to find out if a point is not just within the rectangle of a polygon, but also within the individual points? I'd just be working with closed polys, and would just need to find out if one point is within the poly (2D, a graphic) . Thanks much in advance! Hope this hasn't been covered before here, since I'm relatively new to the list... ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: RAM questions...
>This is another area where major improvements will be made for the 2.3 >release. When can we expect this, anyhow? Is it fair to start being impatient now? ;) ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: milliseconds
I also thought of another question: I know HyperCard's ticks are actually the graphical refresh rate of the Mac OS, or something like that... I know they're not truly 1/60th of a second, just a tiny tiny amount off. This builds up after awhile... are MetaCard ticks truly 1/60th of a second? (I'm guessing yes, since it's cross-platform...) ---- Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: interrupting repeat
>The repeat goes through a text in a variable and if it finds words with >certain characteristics I want it to stop, allow me to change those >characteristics and then go on to the next words. >Imagine a speller looking for misspelled words in a text, stopping when it >finds one and continuing after some input from the user. >I considered your suggestions but I decided the "cleanest" solution was >using the modal window. >I just hoped there was something I didn't know.in terms of interrupting >a repeat temporarily. on doStuff put line 1 of field "text" into theEntireText put the number of words of theEntireText into theBigCounter put "1" into whichWord repeat until whichWord > theBigCounter put word whichWord of theEntireText into testWord put "1" into whichChar --Use the next repeat only if you're dealing with individual chars repeat until whichChar > the number of chars of testWord -- handle the individual chars of each word -- if you find something special, put the word or char into a variable, then exit repeat end repeat -- do more stuff here if necessary, which it probably is -- if the special word or char in the above repeat is special, and we need -- to jump out of this loop, do an exit repeat add 1 to whichWord end repeat --do even MORE fun stuff! end doStuff >Maybe there should be something like "stop repeat....resume". Probably not necessary. >Regards, Andu Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Re: Mouse() function
>I'm not sure what the problem is here (and suspect that it has a lot >to do with what happens in "doOtherStuff"), but as a general rule in >MetaCard, *never* use "wait until X" or "repeat until Y" where Y is >any user-initiated change. It's a horribly inefficient way to things >(the technical term is polling, which is the antithesis of the >event-driven model all GUIs and multi-tasking OSs are built on). Hmmm...okay... >You'll get much smoother response and consume a fraction of the CPU >time if you use the mouseDown/mouseUp/mouseRelease/mouseMove messages, >possibly in combination with "send .. in" for things that need to be >done periodically (e.g., making flashing buttons, or changing the >frame in a GIF at a non-standard rate). It's harder to develop this >way because the important routines end up getting scattered over >several handlers, but is the only way to go, especially for >time-critical applications like games. I'm not sure if I can do that at all, however. I need to have stuff going on even while the user isn't inputting any commands, when the mouse is totally still, no keys are pushed, and the user is sitting back in his chair drinking Sprite. Mostly for this I'm talking about my basketball game, where the player would be playing against a computer-controlled guy. I suppose the "send .. in" command could work for this somehow (I'd have to think awhile to get it to work how I'd want to) ... Also, as far as the mouse handling works... the script that worked for me perfectly in HyperCard (it was in The Fishin' Hole 1.0) did NOT work like it did in HC when I directly imported the stack into MC. I just opened the script and looked at it, and I'm wondering if MetaCard just lets mouseDown/mouseUp/etc messages go thru to whatever object the mouse is above, even when a script is happening, since this was the case. The bobber would do some stuff, and if you clicked (it had a little "if the mouse is down then play "whoa" " line in the script) , it wouldn't pick up the click. When the script was done, however, it sometimes would send a mouseUp message to the button the cursor was directly under, even if the user didn't click since the script ended. I'm not sure how well I'm explaining this... Well, I figured out a workaround to my problems in the casino game, but the basketball game will still have to be tackled... and heck, maybe C would be better to do that in, even... > Regards, >Scott Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
Mouse() function
This is my first posting to the list here, and I think it's of interest to many people. The problem I'm experiencing is with the Mouse() function. When I put the following line into a repeating loop: wait until the mouse is down or if the mouse is down then ... it only works some times. On the first time through the loop, it will correctly tell me the current state of the mouse button (I'm on a Mac, and using a one-button mouse, but a multiple button mouse should work with this, too) . However, when it loops around and comes to one of those two lines, it cannot tell if the mouse is pressed. The only message it gets (for some unknown reason) is that the mouse is up, even when I'm pressing and holding it down. (I've checked this by making a repeat loop which puts the result of Mouse() into msg box) Here's part of a script I'm talking about: repeat until givenTheSign is "stay" wait until the mouse is down --**Also could be "wait until Mouse() is down" put the mouseLoc into someVariable doOtherStuff end repeat The first time through the repeat, it keeps checking to see if the mouse is down and, when it's depressed, it moves on to the next line (put the mouseLoc into someVariable) . However, the next time through the loop, it just gets stuck on "wait until the mouse is down". This is quite important for a few games I'm working on, including a basketball and casino game. What could I do about this peculiarity? Thanks for your time! Karl Becker, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy/ Featuring: Tiger's Eye Casino, MacBasketball, and The Fishin' Hole!
