hitt@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Daniel Hitt) (11/09/90)
I have been informed that there is no analogue to hypercard for the NeXT. Does anyone have a different understanding? Are there partial analogues, and what experience have people had with them? dan
mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) (11/09/90)
In article <1990Nov9.070607.13585@Neon.Stanford.EDU> hitt@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Daniel Hitt) writes: >I have been informed that there is no analogue to hypercard for >the NeXT. > >Does anyone have a different understanding? My understanding is that HyperCube is a reasonable analogue of HyperCard. Supposedly, it even runs HyperCard stacks. Check the fall software and peripherals catalog in the multimedia and hypermedia section. If anyone else has other information (like whether this software is any good, whether it can show more than one stack window at a time, etc.) I would appreciate their posting it, because I'm considering buying it.
vehaag@crocus.uwaterloo.ca (Viktor Haag) (11/10/90)
In article <1990Nov9.070607.13585@Neon.Stanford.EDU> hitt@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Daniel Hitt) writes: >I have been informed that there is no analogue to hypercard for >the NeXT. > >Does anyone have a different understanding? According to the Fall '90 Software and Peripherals manual from NeXT, there is a Hypercard analogue called HyperCube, that acts as far as I could tell from the advert in a very similar manner (if nothing else the terms used for the app and the app's 'scripting language' - CubeTalk I think or something similar - were very suggestive of the HyperCard product). HyperCube has its own scripting language (cf) and the screen shot makes it look a lot like the Mac product. IMO this would be nice but I really hope that its not a Mac app moved to the NeXT environment. For example, I hope that the card size is not limited to a 9" area (same size as the small Mac screen). HyperCube claims to be compatible with HyperCard though (scripts will port, and I think that the actual stacks will too, but I am unsure on this last one), so I bet that pesky 9" limit will be there for now. I personally would be very interested in this product. vik -- "We murder to dissect" Wordsworth
jad@lanl.gov (John De Vries) (11/12/90)
In article <1990Nov9.184957.14763@watdragon.waterloo.edu> vehaag@crocus.uwaterloo.ca (Viktor Haag) writes: >In article <1990Nov9.070607.13585@Neon.Stanford.EDU> hitt@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Daniel Hitt) writes: >>I have been informed that there is no analogue to hypercard for >>the NeXT. >> >>Does anyone have a different understanding? > >According to the Fall '90 Software and Peripherals manual from NeXT, there is a >Hypercard analogue called HyperCube By Thoughtful Software (or some such name) and it IS VAPORWARE! I called them about 3 weeks ago and got a "maybe 1st quarter 1991" or so, but I don't think it'll be that soon. Yeah, it is in the catalog, but no such software is shipping. Which is too bad, 'cuz I could have used it too! John deVries (just back from the NeXT Developer's Camp, which was THOROUGHLY worth the money!!) jad@lanl.gov
poser@csli.Stanford.EDU (Bill Poser) (11/16/90)
I think that this presents another example of the utility of the capabilities that come with UNIX, as pointed out by another poster. Although it doesn't do everything that a hypertext system does, a great many of the applications that Hypercard and Hypertalk are used for on a Mac require no special software on a UNIX system like the NeXT because the shells do them just fine. A lot of people think they need something like Hypercard just to write scripts because they have never used a system with a programmable command interpreter.
mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) (11/17/90)
In article <16441@csli.Stanford.EDU> poser@csli.stanford.edu (Bill Poser) writes: >I think that this presents another example of the utility of the >capabilities that come with UNIX, as pointed out by another poster. I don't dispute the utility of UNIX, and I'm certainly enjoying all the useful tools that come with the NeXT cube. However, I also like HyperCard and its clones. They make it real easy to knock together a working tool that has an arbitrary bitmap (or in some cases vector graphic) as its interface. It's sort of like having a paint program that has a simple shell language built into it. I still think that, when you come right down to it, Xerox Notecards is whizzier and more powerful, but I like having this thing that I can use to whip up some set of graphical things that execute commands, and that I can use instantly, as soon as the drawing is done. With that in mind, I called up Thoughful Software and asked about HyperCube. They said that they think it'll ship in March, that they plan to charge under $500, and that they plan to support all the behavior of Apple's HyperCard 2.0 and then some. Extensions that they plan to support are the full 32-bit color model of the color machines and interfaces to the Sound and Music Kits. They also plan to support something equivalent to XCMDs and XFCNs for extending the capabilities of the product. We discussed typed linking a la Notecards, and the rep said that they had no specific plans, but that typed links were being considered. I'll be real interested to see this product; if it looks good, I'll probably buy a copy.