Re: Jeanne's book
At 2:27 PM -0800 3/16/2002, Shari wrote: If there were a book of that ilk for MetaCard... nothing would be more awesome! I spend a lot of time doing simple things in MC because the internal documentation is so sparse. So there's a lot of trial and error to figure things out. I'd buy Jeanne's book in a heartbeat! 'Cept she hasn't posted yet... so I'm not sure of the status or whether it will differentiate between Rev and MC. Or even if there will be one. But I coulda sworn that somewhere on the Rev mailing list, back when I was deciding which way to go, I heard talk of a book in the works... Not sure how this rumor got started, but I am not currently working on such a book (apart from the Rev docs - my work on those is ongoing and will include a cookbook of script snippets and more in-depth introductory material, as well as what's in them now). Sorry about that. -- Jeanne A. E. DeVoto ~ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.runrev.com/ Runtime Revolution Limited - Power to the Developer! ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Formatted text
At 3:07 AM -0800 3/19/2002, Signe Marie Sanne wrote: I have lots of Word files saved as .rtf (on my Mac). I then save them as .htm-files and import them into a customProperty: Now fld tekst contains text with italic, bold etc and with nice specific Norwegian letters on both Windows and Mac. My question is: Is there an easier way to do this - from ordinary Word files into formatted text in a field? My next question: Is there a way to export the same custom properties and get back the formatting in a Word file? Well, RTF is a publicly documented format, so you should be able to write a routine to import and export the data complete with styles. Geoff Canyon wrote a stack to convert the Rev docs to RTF format http://www.runrev.com/revolution/downloads/developerdownloads/revrtfer.zip, an d taking a look at it scripts should help you get started. -- Jeanne A. E. DeVoto ~ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.runrev.com/ Runtime Revolution Limited - Power to the Developer! ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Problems with movies in Win98
Hello, I am using Metacard to make an educational CDROM to be used in any platform. Now I am using version 2.4 and I am including some movies. I have found a problem playing these .mov files on a Windows98: when I execute the program directly from the CD I cannot see any movie at all. I see the player but not an image. When I install all the files in the local disk there is no problem at all. Anyone has a clue about it? This behavior doesn't happen when the same program is played on Win95 and 2000 I have QuickTime 5 installed. Thanks! Ignasi Labastida i Juan Universitat de Barcelona ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Feature request: tooltip
This may sound simple, and if there's a way to do it already, then I apologize for labeling this as a feature request...but...for my application it would be quite useful if a tooltip could display in something other than a single line. I'd like to be able to populate a tooltip with several lines (lines separated by lineFeed characters) and have the tooltip pop up as a small rectangular window instead of one long line :) ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Problems with movies in Win98
At 11:56 PM -0800 3/19/2002, Ignasi Labastida i Juan wrote: I have found a problem playing these .mov files on a Windows98: when I execute the program directly from the CD I cannot see any movie at all. I see the player but not an image. When I install all the files in the local disk there is no problem at all. Anyone has a clue about it? I can't find the relevant messages in my archives, but I seem to remember there is some issue with playing movies that are in the root directory of a CD. Are your movies in the root, or in a subfolder? -- Jeanne A. E. DeVoto ~ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.runrev.com/ Runtime Revolution Limited - Power to the Developer! ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Thank you
Thanks for fixing the script editor's nasty habit on the Mac of highlighting an entire line of text with only a single click if you had previously triple-clicked another line. You've also imporved the same window's propensity to jump to a different scroll location when clicking it under certain circumstances. Thanks!! ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
If so, you could try using send in commands to trigger the handler repeatedly. The handler could check to see if the sound was done and if so, start the next one. After an hour of playing with various forms of the send command, I gave up and went back to the long, klutzy version. Unfortunately I don't have hours to spend on one item of code. My last failed attempt follows. If anyone knows a fix, please make sure the fix works before posting it, please? Don't assume, 'kay guys? Chasing after empty code isn't fun! # in the menuItem script global nextSound put darn you.wav into nextSound tempHand answer hello on tempHand global nextSound put darn you.wav,aaah.wav,goodie.wav,oh yeah.wav,talk to you.wav into soundList if nextSound is in sound() then repeat with x = 1 to the number of items of soundList get item x of soundList if it is nextSound then put (item (x + 1) of soundList) into nextSound end if exit repeat end repeat end if if the sound is done then play nextSound else if talk is not in nextSound then send tempHand to me in 1 ticks end if end if end tempHand -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
I'm not sure why you couldn't do it the HyperCard way, as long as your sounds are in MC-compatible formats (which it sounds like they are -- .wav is fine.) I've had good luck with the ordinary play command (no player object, just regular old play snd.wav), using sounds that were imported into the stack. It works just like in HC. I don't think I've tried to queue them up though. Was there a problem with the queueing? Apparently so. Tried it again, and the results are: put darn you.wav,aaah.wav,goodie.wav,oh yeah.wav,talk to you.wav into soundList repeat with x = 1 to the number of items of soundList play (item x of soundList) end repeat answer hello It plays the first part of the first sound (cuts it in half) and the last part of the last sound (cuts it in half). plays 1/2 of darn you.wav opens hello plays 1/2 of talk to you.wav It's as though the hello window opening gets in the way, cutting out all the sounds in the middle. -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
Shari wrote: If so, you could try using send in commands to trigger the handler repeatedly. The handler could check to see if the sound was done and if so, start the next one. After an hour of playing with various forms of the send command, I gave up and went back to the long, klutzy version. I did some quick tests. Apparently MC won't queue sounds the way HC does; as soon as you play a second sound, it will cut off the first. So using send in is the only way to queue sounds, unless you use a wait until the sound is done command, which won't work if you want to simultaneously issue other commands. The problem with answer is that it displays a modal dialog. Modal dialogs stop all messages until they are dismissed, meaning any send in commands won't execute until the user dismisses the dialog. In my tests, the first sound did complete while the answer dialog was displayed, but of course no further sounds were triggered because no messages were sent until the dialog was closed. So the solution has to be to avoid modal dialogs. You could do that by creating your own dialog stack and storing it as a substack in your main stack. You'd fill the text field with the appropriate response and set the button labels to whatever you want. Then display it as modeless: modeless myDialog The always-available global dialogdata can be used to store the user's button click response, or you can just have the custom dialog set a property that you can read to get the button they clicked. The drawback to using a modeless stack is that the user can click outside the stack and the custom dialog will pop behind other windows. So, no easy way to do what you want I guess. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
So the solution has to be to avoid modal dialogs. You could do that by creating your own dialog stack and storing it as a substack in your main stack. You'd fill the text field with the appropriate response and set the button labels to whatever you want. Then display it as modeless: modeless myDialog This would definitely be an option for the current project... Though I'm wondering how other projects will fare. Remembering a piece of code in Pork Barrel, where I have several soundchannels playing at the same time, each in a repeat loop, while a whole series of visuals and images do things on the screen, while at the same time other handlers are running in the background... (I think this is the part where you hit Saddam Hussein with a bomb and blow him out of the desert, to the sounds of planes and bombs and screams to appropriate visual effects to show you were successful :-) I'll tell you, it took me awhile to work out the soundChannel scripts, as even my wondrous Hypertalk 2.2 didn't give quite enough detail, but once I figured it out, it sure opened up a whole world of sound! No doubt Hypercard had a lot of hidden talents that weren't well documented. Too bad Apple abandoned it. I held out as long as I could before switching. I picked a really good time to switch, as I'm getting into projects I want to release cross platform, and one very enthusiastic project which could be done in Hypercard, but it sure will fare much better in Metacard. In fact, I'm starting to see ways of doing things in Metacard that will make me a very happy programmer when I get back to work on this project :-) (Actually started it in Hypercard a long while back, and got distracted away from it into other projects.) Can't wait to get back on it now! -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
Shari wrote: Though I'm wondering how other projects will fare. Remembering a piece of code in Pork Barrel, where I have several soundchannels playing at the same time, each in a repeat loop, while a whole series of visuals and images do things on the screen, while at the same time other handlers are running in the background... Of course, another option is just to combine all the sounds using a sound editing program and save the result as a single sound file. Then you have the illusion of multiple sounds but you only have to play one. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
Of course, another option is just to combine all the sounds using a sound editing program and save the result as a single sound file. Then you have the illusion of multiple sounds but you only have to play one. I use the same sounds in several pieces of code, but not in the same order/format. I do this with virtually every program I create. I use sounds a lot and it's not uncommon for a program to have 50 sounds or more. Blackjack and Poker have about 200 sounds each. Used at different times and in different combinations. Commonly I'll have several global variables, each with a set of sounds. -- HYPERCARD CODE -- global winSound,loseSound,streetSounds,airSounds put did good,you won,happy into winSound put bad job,you lost,awww into loseSound put scream1,scream2,kids,dogs,horns into streetSounds put airplane,bomb into airSounds One script might just play one specific sounds. play awww doSomething Another script might combine sounds. set the soundChannel to 1 (not having my soundChannel scripts in front of me, I'd hate to post from memory and have it be wrong) # play item 1 and 2 of airSounds in a repeat loop set the soundChannel to 2 # repeat however many times, play any item of streetSounds doSomething Another script will play a set of sounds in order, some chosen from winSound, some chose from loseSound, etc. put you won,awww,bomb,dogs,did good into soundByte repeat with x = 1 to the number of sounds of soundByte play (item x of soundByte) end repeat I like to randomize it, so the player doesn't get the exact same thing every time. -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
mci midi questions
I need some help. I'm trying to add some 'background' music to an application and I would like to use MIDI (small files are good). In MetaCard (on Windows) you use the mciSendString() function to send commands to the Windows system, and this is fine, except that I need a comprehensive list of commands. Specifically, I need to periodically query the device to know when it has reached the end, so I can restart it. There is a STATUS command for MCI, but it doesn't seem to work with the MIDI SEQUENCER device. If it does, I have no idea what the valid parameters are. The example for STATUS in the MCI.MC file available from MetaCard's website doesn't work either, it is lacking a (vital) parameter. Does anyone know of a comprehensive list of MCI Commands? Related question that I will need to address - is there any way to *natively* play MIDI on Mac? TIA, Leston ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: mci midi questions
Leston, Check out http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cal/publications/mcia2m.html. Have fun! Ken Ray Sons of Thunder Software Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/ - Original Message - From: Leston Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 3:45 PM Subject: mci midi questions I need some help. I'm trying to add some 'background' music to an application and I would like to use MIDI (small files are good). In MetaCard (on Windows) you use the mciSendString() function to send commands to the Windows system, and this is fine, except that I need a comprehensive list of commands. Specifically, I need to periodically query the device to know when it has reached the end, so I can restart it. There is a STATUS command for MCI, but it doesn't seem to work with the MIDI SEQUENCER device. If it does, I have no idea what the valid parameters are. The example for STATUS in the MCI.MC file available from MetaCard's website doesn't work either, it is lacking a (vital) parameter. Does anyone know of a comprehensive list of MCI Commands? Related question that I will need to address - is there any way to *natively* play MIDI on Mac? TIA, Leston ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
RE: mci midi questions
Not sure what you mean by *natively*, but quicktime will play MIDI on a Mac. -Glen Yates Related question that I will need to address - is there any way to *natively* play MIDI on Mac? TIA, Leston ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
On Wednesday, March 20, 2002, at 10:29 AM, Shari wrote: Of course, another option is just to combine all the sounds using a sound editing program and save the result as a single sound file. Then you have the illusion of multiple sounds but you only have to play one. I use the same sounds in several pieces of code, but not in the same order/format. I do this with virtually every program I create. I use sounds a lot and it's not uncommon for a program to have 50 sounds or more. Blackjack and Poker have about 200 sounds each. Used at different times and in different combinations. This is what I would do. Set up all of your sounds and music in one file. Put a one second delay in between all the sounds. Then you write down the order in which all the sounds are laid out. Know the timing of each sound and you can have QT play from 10 seconds into the file up to 15 seconds. Do this with as many players as you like and you can really go to town. The only hard part is the setup. Once it is done though you have a solution that will be easy to use through the program. You could even write a small randomizer that would call on random tracks if you like and play them. -Mark Talluto ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
WindowShape
When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows, MC's perceived height of the stack is apparently dependent on the height of the stack's titlebar. Is there a way to test the potential varying height of the titlebar and allow the mask to be correctly positioned? Thanks Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director, Tactile Media [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.tactilemedia.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
Scott Rossi wrote: When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows I tried to do that too, but I don't think I had the right kind of image. How do you make a masked image? I'm not entirely straight on what an alpha mask is. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
This is what I would do. Set up all of your sounds and music in one file. Put a one second delay in between all the sounds. Then you write down the order in which all the sounds are laid out. Know the timing of each sound and you can have QT play from 10 seconds into the file up to 15 seconds. Do this with as many players as you like and you can really go to town. The only hard part is the setup. Once it is done though you have a solution that will be easy to use through the program. You could even write a small randomizer that would call on random tracks if you like and play them. -Mark Talluto No thanks! I doubt my computer even has enough memory to handle a sound file that big. You want me to put 200 sounds in one long sound byte, many of them much longer than a single beep, and try to figure out where each piece starts and stops?? And do this for every program I create??? That's nuts! I have programs with that many sounds. Might as well program in C... a whole lot of code just to accomplish a simple task. I fell in love with Hypercard for its ease of use. For its simplicity. I bought all the C books and Codewarrior Gold awhile back, but guess what? Decided I did not want to waste time doing things the hard way when they could be done the easy way. Even if I had to make sacrifices for the simplicity. And as we all know, Hypercard was a wondrous tool but could not compete with C. I gave that choice a great deal of thought, before choosing Metacard. It was not an easy choice. But simplicity and ease won out. As with Hypercard, I chose Metacard for ease of use. Otherwise, I'd crack open my C books. Shari C -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows, MC's perceived height of the stack is apparently dependent on the height of the stack's titlebar. Is there a way to test the potential varying height of the titlebar and allow the mask to be correctly positioned? Speaking of windows, I ran into something, I'm sure I'm missing a piece of code somewhere. I have a menubar, to show for Windows. And I pretty much always have Edit Menus on while the project is open. Sometimes I forget to click the box, and Edit Menus are off. And frequently, the stack grows in height, adds the height of the menubar to the bottom of the stack, with Edit Menus off, and I have to manually resize the stack back to its normal size. I haven't edited Metacard's resize handler. And my menubar started off as Metacard's. I think the menu choice was Create Menu? And I of course added/deleted menuItems to suit my program, and deleted a couple of menu buttons and added a couple. Help is at the end as it should be. I could write a handler that sets the size of the stack every time it opens, to trap for this. But surely it's a bug in my code somewhere. Or something I failed to put in. I'm so new to Metacard's menubars. Has anyone else experienced this, and what did it turn out to be? Shari C -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
Recently, J. Landman Gay wrote: When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows I tried to do that too, but I don't think I had the right kind of image. How do you make a masked image? I'm not entirely straight on what an alpha mask is. Ever create a transparent GIF? That image has a mask that determines which parts of the the image are opaque and those that are transparent. You can use transparent GIFs or PNG images as the source images for your window masks, but note that the alpha mask needs to be 1 bit black and white only -- no shades of gray (but hopefully in the future...). Photoshop is the big player for creating these images but FireWorks and any other bitmap apps that allow you to save GIFs and PNGs will work. Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director Tactile Media, Multimedia Design Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.tactilemedia.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Temporary picts
On Wednesday, March 20, 2002, at 06:33 PM, Shari wrote: This is what I would do. Set up all of your sounds and music in one file. Put a one second delay in between all the sounds. Then you write down the order in which all the sounds are laid out. Know the timing of each sound and you can have QT play from 10 seconds into the file up to 15 seconds. Do this with as many players as you like and you can really go to town. The only hard part is the setup. Once it is done though you have a solution that will be easy to use through the program. You could even write a small randomizer that would call on random tracks if you like and play them. -Mark Talluto No thanks! I doubt my computer even has enough memory to handle a sound file that big. You want me to put 200 sounds in one long sound byte, many of them much longer than a single beep, and try to figure out where each piece starts and stops?? And do this for every program I create??? That's nuts! I have programs with that many sounds. Might as well program in C... a whole lot of code just to accomplish a simple task. I fell in love with Hypercard for its ease of use. For its simplicity. I bought all the C books and Codewarrior Gold awhile back, but guess what? Decided I did not want to waste time doing things the hard way when they could be done the easy way. Even if I had to make sacrifices for the simplicity. And as we all know, Hypercard was a wondrous tool but could not compete with C. I gave that choice a great deal of thought, before choosing Metacard. It was not an easy choice. But simplicity and ease won out. As with Hypercard, I chose Metacard for ease of use. Otherwise, I'd crack open my C books. Shari C 200 sounds per program was a piece of information you had not mentioned earlier. I do not know why I did not just suggest that you put all the sound files into one folder. Read the directory of files and put that into a variable or a property. Then create a randomizer that will call on the different lines in the variable. Play that line (which is the name of the saved sound) through a player. The amount of code needed would be just a few lines. If you need them to play seamlessly from one file to the next, that would be the biggest trick. I would start out by having your program get the size (in time) of the file it is going to play first and have a send command create another player and start it at the estimated end time. Yes it would be nice if you could do it the old way from HC. But there are alternatives that should work out just fine. What you get in the end is longer sound code, but advanced features not available in HC without a truckload of externals. Don't get me started on the power of running on multiple platforms. Put your C books down and put your diskettes of HC away and give this a try. -Mark Talluto ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
Scott Rossi wrote: Recently, J. Landman Gay wrote: I tried to do that too, but I don't think I had the right kind of image. How do you make a masked image? I'm not entirely straight on what an alpha mask is. Ever create a transparent GIF? That image has a mask that determines which parts of the the image are opaque and those that are transparent. Oh THAT! Thanks Scott. I am your basic layperson when it comes to graphics but I do understand transparent gif. Now I can try this window thing, it sounds very slick. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
