cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu (Charles C. Allen) (09/05/87)
HyperCard is a brilliant idea, but as someone already mentioned, the
interface leaves alot to be desired.
Here are some "features" that really cause me to gnash my teeth:
* All cards are 512x342
This is silly. I can see requiring that all cards with the
same background be the same size, or maybe even all cards in
the same stack, but ALL cards? Just go through the stacks
that come with HyperCard and you'll find several that would
benefit from a smaller card size. A larger card size would be
useful also. The ROM has this neat control called a scroll
bar that does wonders in these situations.
* No way to abort changes to stacks
GROWF! This is probably the worst thing about HyperCard. It
is the ONLY program on the Mac I've run across that silently
saves all your changes. Manually making a "backup" stack is
error-prone and unwieldy.
* One stack open at a time
Here we are in the age of MultiFinder, multi-megabyte Macs,
and HyperCard won't allow more than one open stack. Sigh.
* Home Card?
Maybe it's just me, but I can't really figure out why the Home
Card is necessary. It's sort of a Finder for stacks. Yes, it
has search paths and the "user level" card in there also, but
basically Home Card exists for opening stacks. Why not just
make an SFGetFile dialog that displays icons? Say, that would
be a nice idea for any application.... The preferences and
search paths could be subsumed by menu items. If more than
one stack could be open at a time, this wouldn't be as bad.
There are a few bugs that are rather annoying also:
X Open up a stack on a screen bigger than 512x342 (I have an
Apple RGB monitor on my Mac II). Open a desk accessory, and
place it off to the side. Now click on the card stack window
to re-activate it. Now click on the card stack window to
re-activate it. Now click... what is this? It won't come to
the foreground! Oddly, you CAN activate the stack window by
clicking on one of the companion (Tools, Patterns, Messages)
windows, but that's hardly intuitive.
On a related note, notice that the card stack title bar always
looks "de-activated" when one of the companion windows are
out. I don't know about you folks, but when a window looks
de-activated, I don't expect it to respond to clicks except by
becoming active.
X The "visual effect" command has no effect when more than one
bit plane is in use.
And here's an oddity about background buttons and fields that confuses
me:
? A background field has its position and whatnot stored
"globally". The text of the field, however, is local to each
card with that background. A background button has its
position and whatnot stored "globally". The hilite state of the
button is also global.
Both cases sort of make sense, but so do the cases where the
text of background fields is global, and the hilite state of a
background button is local. It's rather confusing that fields
and buttons are different in this regard. I would prefer
consistency one way or the other. Even better, have this as
an option in the Button info and Field info dialogs.
You can, of course, simulate the "other" behavior in either
case.
I'll hold off on my other comments 'til I've had a chance to read the
rumored HyperCard Script Language Guide. Back to simultaneously
gnashing my teeth and having a grand time in HyperCard....
Charlie Allen cca@newton.physics.purdue.edudlt@csun.UUCP (09/06/87)
In article <809@newton.physics.purdue.edu> cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu (Charles C. Allen) writes: >HyperCard is a brilliant idea, but as someone already mentioned, the >interface leaves alot to be desired. >There are a few bugs that are rather annoying also: > > X Open up a stack on a screen bigger than 512x342 (I have an > Apple RGB monitor on my Mac II). Open a desk accessory, and > place it off to the side. Now click on the card stack window > to re-activate it. Now click on the card stack window to > re-activate it. Now click... what is this? It won't come to > the foreground! Oddly, you CAN activate the stack window by > clicking on one of the companion (Tools, Patterns, Messages) > windows, but that's hardly intuitive. I, too, find this an annoyance. I had't tried clicking on the associated windows to activate the stack window. I tried to cut some data from a text handling da and then paste it into a new address card. The only thing is, I couldn't bring the stack window to the front. The same thing with the alarm clock (Apple's). (Since JClock doesn't work on the mac II I'll generally put up the alarm clock in the upper right hand corner of the screen and just let it run deactivated.) I'll have to try clicking on the message window ... -- Dave Thompson uucp: {ihnp4|hplabs|psivax}!csun!dlt CSUN Computer Center phone: (818) 885-2790 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330