Page 1 of 1

Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 12:44 am
by hawklaw
Heather sent me the old supercard conversion utilities. However, it seems that 1.5 doesn't recognize the export tool as a supercard stack :shock: )

Is there an intermediate conversion tool to get from SuperCard 1.5 to something newer?

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 9:43 pm
by jacque
I don't think so, the SC converter is very old and hasn't been updated for a long time.

But you can copy the scripts and paste them into a LiveCode stack. Its tedious, but it will work.

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:40 pm
by hawklaw
Older is better in this case :)

I'm having a horrible time getting files *onto* my MacClassic; it may well be that it *could* run; I just need it to keep its mac attributes.

I've also found images for SuperCard 1.6, but they're 800k (and again, getting them *to* the mac is an issue).

I'm trying to use hfsutils, but not getting very far that direction.

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 4:40 pm
by jacque
Oh right, I just noticed you're using a really old SC version. What file format are the originals? Are they StuffIt files? That was the norm back then. If you could find an ancient version of StuffIt, it should do the transfer okay. The OS X FInder compression also keeps resource forks, but I don't know if Classic Mac can unzip those correctly.

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 4:58 pm
by hawklaw
I have Supercard 1.5 installed, and have fund a .sit of version 1.6 with 800k disk images on it. If I can find a reliable way to get Mac files onto the classic, I could put these on 1.4m diskettes to move them, and then use something (what?) to write the images to 800k diskettes.

My stacks are early supercard format.

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 5:25 pm
by FourthWorld
Given the differences between the SC and LC objet models, and the many differences in app design that have happened since SC 1.5 was out, it may not be worth the effort.

If you need the scripts you can drop them onto any text editor to extract them, but expect to spend some time rewriting them to work in LC.

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 6:07 pm
by hawklaw
I doubt I'll hit much of that--there wasn't really any sophisticated manipulation of objects. Generally, the input of data into fields, and the manipulation and placing of filled fields.

It's just *so* much easier to move forward and change from something that executes and works than it is to start from scratch . . .

Re: Converting from SuperCard 1.5 (seriously! :shock:)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 6:39 pm
by FourthWorld
hawklaw wrote:It's just *so* much easier to move forward and change from something that executes and works than it is to start from scratch . . .
Ah, but there's the rub: what executes in SC will likely take quite a bit of effort to execute in LC. I've done a lot of SC->LC ports over the years, and while the languages are very similar they're also just different enough to require some work.

If the layouts aren't that complex, why not just extract the scripts with a text editor and recreate the layout in LC?