kamins@kumr.lns.com (Scot Kamins) (06/03/91)
About a month ago, I posted an article asking for feedback on the On Line Help (HyperCard Help, HyperTalk Reference, Help Extras) that comes with HyperCard. I got very few responses; so I'm trying again. Be assured that your feedback will NOT be ignored. I've been contracted by Claris to find out how to improve the system, and the only way to do that is to get feedback from you folks (actually, us folks :-} ). What I need to know is this: What's good about the existing on line help? What's bad about it? What's useless in it? What could be improved? What's missing? I also need to know, if you don't use the Help system, why you don't use it. !NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE!NOTE! This is NOT an opportunity to trash Claris or its policies about packaging or about anything else!!! I'm a contractor, NOT an employee, and I'm trying to do a great job on a great product. I don't care if Claris or Apple has or hasn't been responsive in the past. Rather, this is a >genuine< opportunity for people to have real impact in at least one area of HyperCard. So please don't flame me or Claris or Apple - at least, not in THIS thread! ;-} Thanks, folks. Scot -- Scot Kamins Co-author, "HyperTalk 2.0: The Book" (415) 282-8872 (with Dan Winkler) 671 28th Street San Francisco 94131 kamins@kumr.lns.com kamins@wet.UUCP
bcarter@claven.idbsu.edu (Bruce Carter) (06/05/91)
In article <1991Jun2.211758.3370@kumr.lns.com> kamins@kumr.lns.com (Scot Kamins) writes: >About a month ago, I posted an article asking for feedback on the On Line >Help (HyperCard Help, HyperTalk Reference, Help Extras) that comes with >HyperCard. I got very few responses; so I'm trying again. Greetings Scot, I just answered a similar inquiry from Jeanne DeVoto on CompuServe. Are you guys sharing notes, or do you want a copy of the information (or at least as much as I can remember of it... *heh*). Bruce Carter Internet: bcarter@claven.idbsu.edu Courseware Development Coordinator duscarte@idbsu.idbsu.edu Boise State University Bitnet/CREN: duscarte@idbsu
Barry.Chern@p19.f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Barry Chern) (06/13/91)
Scot, First let me say how much I enjoyed the HyperTalk 2.0 book, even if you were so greedy to corner the market that you had to rush it out before you could get the correct info on the Picture XCMD. /% >) I really enjoyed reading the script examples due to their fictional elements. I'll have to re-install the online help to have anything really detailed to say, it went in another desperate hard drive purge recently. But that in itself says something about it, I guess. My major perception is that it was slow. Selecting the index topics seemed to take forever. In the old Help stack where an index was just a bunch of words on a card, you would click one and go there. Now that it tries to simulate an SF dialog or something, you click and wait for it to hilite, then wait for some complex thinking about something or other before actually getting to the next card. I should mention that I'm using a Plus. I'm afraid people who develope things these days don't think about such ha ndicaps much. Anyway, the features of Help that look like they should improve usability instead seem to be making it useless. I can look it up in the book easier. My perception may be skewed by my increased knowledge of the product. I used the original Help stack as my primary learning aid, once I had managed to somehow lose my copy of the Goodman book. ( I think it just fell off the top of one of my 'leaning towers of important stuff' into a trash bag.) I would consult it whenever I had a question, and read all the way through the HyperTalk section to learn the language. I don't need much of that kind of help any more, so I can't really compare. But, a quick refere nce of the HyperTalk syntax would be real nice. Emphasis on "quick". --Barry -- Barry Chern via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!20.19!Barry.Chern INET: Barry.Chern@p19.f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG
Eric.J.Baumgartner@dartmouth.edu (Eric J. Baumgartner) (06/17/91)
I think all this stuff falls under the category of on-line help, even if it may not have to do help the Help stack directly. I find I want to go straight to HyperTalk Help, so I changed the script. I almost never use HyperCard Help. With System 7, it seems to me HyperCard Help is best implemented via Balloon Help. I hope this is in the works, along with HyperTalk access to Balloon Help. Most of my need for HyperTalk help happens when I'm in a script. Thank God it's not modal any more, but I think it'd be very nice to have a menu with all the commands, functions, properties, etc available. (SuperCard and Director do this. I like Director's Lingo menu better; it doesn't take up any window space.) Choosing a menu item would just enter that item in the script (boring) but with Balloon Help on you could select the menu item and see its syntax, parameters, etc. Possibly there would be a "Paste with parameters" option to enter the item with its params into the script. And while I'm talking about the Script Editor, how about a feature a la CMarker or THINK Pascal where you cmd-click the title bar of the window and get a popup menu of all the handlers and functions in the script? Scripts need better navigation than Find. Another cool feature would be something like: edit script of this card at "mouseUp" which would open the script and automagically scroll to the start of the mouseUp handler. Save me a lot of time, that one. Whoops! Straying off the subject line again... sorry! Eric Baumgartner * ebaum@dartmouth.edu Interactive Media Lab * - When in danger or in doubt, Dartmouth Medical School * run in circles, scream and shout.
cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun16.214322.5870@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Eric.J.Baumgartner@dartmouth.edu (Eric J. Baumgartner) writes: > >Most of my need for HyperTalk help happens when I'm in a script. Thank >God it's not modal any more, but I think it'd be very nice to have a >menu with all the commands, functions, properties, etc available. >(SuperCard and Director do this. I like Director's Lingo menu better; >it doesn't take up any window space.) Choosing a menu item would just >enter that item in the script (boring) but with Balloon Help on you >could select the menu item and see its syntax, parameters, etc. >Possibly there would be a "Paste with parameters" option to enter the >item with its params into the script. ScriptEdit does all those things. It's a replacement editor for HyperCard. Costs about $65, and worth it's weight in gold. > >And while I'm talking about the Script Editor, how about a feature a la >CMarker or THINK Pascal where you cmd-click the title bar of the window >and get a popup menu of all the handlers and functions in the script? ScriptEdit does have an object window that displays all the objects (buttons, fields, cards, backgrounds, stacks) that have scripts, and you can set filters to see some or all of them, or any combination. >Scripts need better navigation than Find. Another cool feature would ScriptEdit has a real grep. > >edit script of this card at "mouseUp" > Andy Cohill -- | ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never | imagined, or were encouraged to avoid. T. Pynchon | |Andy Cohill cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu VPI&SU