[comp.sys.mac.hypercard] Supercard

POTELLE@MAINE.BITNET (John A Potelle) (03/03/89)

Has anyone heard of SuperCard ?  Its supposed to be a HyperCard like (but
not clone) application that has many enhanced features that HyperCard lacks.

I don't remember the company that wrote it but its supposed to be out
by the second quarter of this year.  Comments ?

John A. Potelle  POTELLE@MAINE.BITNET

kim@ucschu.UCSC.EDU.ucsc.edu (New User Name) (03/04/89)

SuperCard was at the SF MacWorld Expo....its main purpose I believe was to
manage with machine upgrades such as color and speedy processing....don't
know if it's on the market yet, but know it will allow old HyperCard stacks
to be upgraded......

~r endmail

david@jc3b21.UUCP (David Quarles) (03/05/89)

From article <1218POTELLE@MAINE>, by POTELLE@MAINE.BITNET (John A Potelle):

> Has anyone heard of SuperCard ?  Its supposed to be a HyperCard like (but
> not clone) application that has many enhanced features that HyperCard lacks.
> 
> I don't remember the company that wrote it but its supposed to be out
> by the second quarter of this year.  Comments ?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
There is an article on this product in the March issue of MACUSER.

About $200 will get you a copy that from what I remember has lots of
advantages over HC.

I think it said: color support, better animation (without a lot of
cards), importation and translating of HC script, more scripting
commands, stereo (?), and others.  SEE the article, it was pretty
complete.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Dave =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EOT

dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David L. Williams) (03/07/89)

>John A Potelle asks:
>Has anyone heard of SuperCard ?  Its supposed to be a HyperCard like (but
>not clone) application that has many enhanced features that HyperCard lacks.

Just saw a complete demo at ComputerWare by a Silicon Beach rep. This baby
is slick! BUT the beta version is SLOOOOOOOOOOWWW, course this thing is so
functionally feature rich its not surprising that initial versions are not
optimized yet.

It has support for everything Hypercard 2.0 OUGHT to be.

- Multiple Windows support.
- Scrollable Windows.
- Full Color support.
- Autotrace.
- Able to import TIFF, paint, pict, pict2 images.
- Support for bitmaps (paint) and objects (draw) modes.
- Multiple "stacks" can be open at once.
- Support for full Macintosh User Interface
	- Pulldown Menus
	- Pop Up Menus
	- Tear off floating palettes.
	- Dialog boxes.
	- Scroll Bars (Why does Bill Atkinson Hate Scrollable windows?).
- Ability to generate Standalone macintosh applications.
- Supports Xcmds etc.

Basically you convert your existing Hypercard stacks to SuperCard format.

Has a separate editing program called Superedit to change the scripts. Again
it goes far beyond the modal dialog box of Hypercard. Course Apple ought to
just bundle something like HyperEdit in as the editing environment for 
HyperCard. By the way HyperEdit was written by Doug Werner @ Apple (Werner1).


If Silicon Beach can get the performance up to a decent level (ie equal to
current Hypercard this thing will sell like HOTCAKES. 

>I don't remember the company that wrote it but its supposed to be out
>by the second quarter of this year.  Comments ?

Published by Silicon Beach out in April I think. $199 retail.

>John A. Potelle  POTELLE@MAINE.BITNET

-David
"Silicon Beach just raised the stakes, will the Hypercard team see or fold?"

Sheldon.Greaves@f444.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sheldon Greaves) (03/24/89)

I am also waiting to see just what kind of an animal SuperCard will turn out to be.  I am surprised that only the MacUser article seems to have paid that much attention to it.  I for one would really like to see SuperCard allow multiple fonts and styles in a single field; I've been looking and waiting for such a product ever since I bought a Mac back in '84.  Maybe this time... (If anyone knows of such a data manager-type product that will do this, let me know!).

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kovach@m5.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Pete Kovach) (06/15/89)

I would like to know if anyone can compare SuperCard to PLUS. PLUS seems
to get rid of a lot of the size limitations that are in Hypercard and
I am not sure sbout PLUS but is sounds like it. Can anyone give me any
Useful information on these products - I need to purchase a tool that allows
full screen size cards and color SOON. Thans.
Peter Kovach	                Honeywell Systems and Research Center

Cat seem out of sorts - Call us, CONFUSE A CAT. We promise results.
"Try everything once - If it's kinky, try it again"

Denise.Medve@f563.n107.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Denise Medve) (06/29/89)

Hello Everyone!  My company uses Hypercard every now and then for
presetations to our clients. After seeing a demonstration of Supercard 
(I was impressed in the visual capabilities) I am curious to know what the 
general consensus is on this new software:  so far I've heard that it's
slow, hard to learn, hard to covert Hypercard files and assorted other
nasties.  If anyone has any comments, verifications, arguments etc.. I'd
certianlly love to hear them.
Thanks Much!!
Denise


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ollef@sics.se (Olle Furberg) (07/01/89)

Denise.Medve@f563.n107.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Denise Medve) writes:

>(I was impressed in the visual capabilities) I am curious to know what the 
>general consensus is on this new software:  so far I've heard that it's
>slow, 

  SuperCard is _very_ slow. You can't use it on a Plus or a SE, you need at
least a MacII. But even if you use a MacII, HC on a MacPlus is faster!
  If you want, I could send a copy of a stand-alone application created
in SC. The standalone is just as slow as SuperCard itself.
  I think SuperCard is fantastic: most of the problem I have with HC have been
fixed in SC. But I'm not going to use it if it doesn't get faster.


>hard to learn,

  You must be really used with HyperCard and HyperTalk before you enter SC 
and ST, which is a super-set of HC and HT.


       /Olle

taylorj@yvax.byu.edu (07/03/89)

I'd have to say that everything you've heard about SuperCard is true (slow,
hard to learn, difficult to convert HC stacks).  It's not a program for the
timid, but...if you're willing to put in the time and to overlook its many
quirks you can produce some truly incredible (albeit slow) creations that you
could never get close to with HyperCard.

Jim Taylor
Microcomputer Support for Curriculum
Brigham Young University
taylorj@byuvax.bitnet

mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard) (07/04/89)

In article <1989Jun30.230808.6922@sics.se> ollef@sics.se (Olle Furberg) writes:
>  You must be really used with HyperCard and HyperTalk before you enter SC 
>and ST, which is a super-set of HC and HT.

I disagree.  There are marked differences between the way one interacts
with HC and SC (the most obvious example being the existence of separate
RunTime and Edit programs in SC).  I found the hardest part was
unlearning a lot of Hypercard-centric ways of thinking about the task.

(The second hardest part was dealing with the documentation which is
incomplete in places and misleading in others (nosirree, it doesn't look
like there was a rush to push this baby out of the nest :-).  The third
was realizing that there was no way I'd ever be able to do anything in
SC with less than 1meg.)

-- 
void *Wayne_Mesard();         Mesard@BBN.COM         BBN, Cambridge, MA