Old Hypercard User Hoping This Will Let Me Do What I Used To

[Bantymom]

Greetings,

I'm just an old lady (older than the Space Age) and teacher who needs to be able to write simple programs for my 2nd-grade students. I learned basic programming (Basic and Fortran) in the age of punch cards and Wang card readers. I was in 7th grade (summer school) when I first shook hands with some invisible mainframe through a terminal that looked like a teletype machine that was the size of a recliner, saving my horse-racing program on a rolled up bit of paper tape punched with tiny holes.

When I first began teaching, I was able to use Basic to write for the little Apple IIe in the classroom, but soon fell behind as programming evolved beyond the time I had free to keep up and couldn't afford to buy anything like a compiler. I still don't even know what a compiler is, so I'm afraid I will never be able to write directly for the computers again.

However, somewhere along the line I was introduced to HyperCard and I fell in love. I made these delightful little stacks, simple, nothing flashy, but which worked great in my 1st-grade class for getting my students to study their phonics. It worked great until I left the classroom to become a reading specialist and teaching coach, and our Macs were upgraded to OS X.

With funding reduced, I am back in the classroom and I need to write again. The search for information on HyperCard led me here. I hope this is the right place. I would like to be able to recreate the stacks I made before, and would like to know if, indeed, Revolution Media is my best bet.

Each card looked like this (or something like this, it was a very long time ago):
There was a background which included a picture. On top of that were three layers of button arrays (4x4). The top layer were all blank. The student would click on one of the blank buttons and it would go away, revealing a button with a word on it. (It is possible that the button didn't disappear, but that a field with the word appeared instead.) After 2-3 seconds, the word disappeared, and an empty field appeared where the student would write the word. If it was correct, the button disappeared, revealing part of the picture beneath. Clearing all the buttons revealed the pictures, then activated a multi-card animation as a reward before advancing the student to the next level.

For those who know RevMedia, will it be possible to create something similar as a stand-alone stack that I can load into my two classroom computers? I have no place to upload something to reside on the web, and in fact don't even know how to do that. I'm getting pretty good at basic CSS for skinning pre-made forums, but actually creating a web page is probably beyond me.

Thank you to any and all who have the time and patience to reply. I would love a programming buddy, if anyone is interested.

Cheers,
Bantymom

[mwieder]

Bantymom-

greetings to Salinas from Berkeley. If I've got this straight, you can't create standalone applications from RevMedia - you'd need Studio or Enterprise for that. But you've got a few options: since Media is free, you could install it on both classroom computers and load the stacks you create that way. Or Ken Ray (http://www.sonsothunder.com) has a free StackRunner application that will run stacks but not let you modify them - that's about as close to a standalone application as you can get.

[Bantymom]

Thanks mwieder. How is the heat up there in Berkeley now? Our natural "air conditioning" kicked back in today, so we are much more comfortable, but I hope you are not running the risk of a bad fire up there right now!

Either of your suggestions works just fine, I think, but would that it mean I have to program the stack separately on each computer? I think I used the term "stand-alone" incorrectly. I meant I don't want the children to have to go to a web site to run the programs. Am I just confused? I feel so LOST!

And, does it look like I will be able to create a HyperCard-like stack like the one I described with RevMedia? (Are they still called "stacks"?)

Cheers,
BantyMom

PS: We can't upload avatars or make signatures here, can we? It doesn't look like it, but I thought you might know.

[FourthWorld]

Yep, Rev calls 'em stacks. While the kids would have to use the browser to run stacks published with the RevWeb plugin, if Ken's player will run them that should be all you need.

As for avatars or make signatures, yes, it's kind of a drag, but the forum went through a phase of heavy spamming in which signatures were links to all sorts of unsavory sites, so they're temporarily disabled. I hope that in the future we can do what some of my favorite forums do, in which you have to have a certain number of posts under your belt before you can add a sig. Spammers never hang around long enough to earn it, and anyone actually participating would get one soon enough. I'll bring this up next time I talk with the site admins. Thanks for the reminder.

[Mark]

Dear BantyMom,

Yup, you can do what you want and since you have experience with HyperCard, it shouldn't be too difficult for you. You will probably have some difficulties with groups at the beginning, but once you got that figured out, I'm sure you will quickly be able to re-create your HyperCard stacks with RevMedia.

The relatively simple stacks you intend to make should run fine in the Rev browser plug-in. The only problem is that you'll need to convince your network administrator to install the browser plug-in standard on all computers.

Naturally, you don't need to programme your stack on each computer separately. You create your stack, build a "standalone" version that's compatible with the plug-in, and put this version on a server. You students download the stack in their internet browser and will be able to use it on any computer that has the plug-in installed.

Best regards,

Mark

[mwieder]

Mark - can Media do this? I thought you couldn't create standalones with Media, including build-to-web. Otherwise the browser plugin idea should work fine.

[mwieder]

Bantymom-

Heat... haha. We had our two days of summer and now our natural summer fog cover has returned. Maybe we'll get more heat later in September.

Anyway, most of your HyperCard knowledge should be directly usable in rev. At times I think having HC experience is a bit of a drawback, though, since there's a little unlearning to do. In particular, forget what you think you know about backgrounds. Rev does have the ability to allow for background groups, but they function almost completely differently from HC backgrounds. Once you get used to it you'll see that it makes much more sense and offers flexibility that simply wasn't available in HC, but it does take some getting used to. But by and large you should have things up and running in no time.

[Bantymom]

Thanks.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the playing of any of this on the two computers in my classroom (ah, gone are the days when all the other teachers were computer-phobic and I could just have their computers migrate into my room). I can download other stacks onto my computer here and run them with RevMedia, so I don't have to go to the internet to do that, right? However, it looks like it also means that the stacks would be susceptible to being messed with. I'm thinking that the Run-only thing might be where I'm headed in the end, but I'll worry about that later. I'm already buying most of the paper and pencils for my 30 students, and am trying to stock a classroom library on my own dime as well, so I can't buy up right now and as the district is still firing teachers, I'm doubting they'll buy it for me right now either. But I'll deal with that later. HyperCard was a while ago and I seem to have lost all of my old stacks, so now that I'm pretty sure this is going to work for me, the first bit of business is to relearn all this, lol.

The news about backgrounds was a bit disheartening, as I relied on that to allow the teacher to be able to deal with the stack no matter what trouble the students had managed to get into. But you say something similar is still available, so I've not giving up.

There were actually very few cards in the stack that dealt with the game itself.

There was a base card which served as a platform (in my way of thinking) that had a stack of control buttons running down one side, a list of students on the other side, and a larger space in the middle where the exercise was presented.

On that I arranged 16 blank buttons which covered the picture.

On top of that were 16 fields which presented the word and then accepted the student's responses, at least I think that was how it worked. There might have been 32 (2 on top of each button, one to show the word, one to take the response).

On top of that were 16 other blank buttons, which when pressed, would disappear and feed a randomly selected word from a teacher-determined list into the field it had been covering. A correct answer removed the fields and the underlying blank card. An incorrect answer would empty both fields and replace/reset the original top button.

Somewhere there were cards with leveled lists of words the stack would chose from. Teachers had access to these lists so they could add the words they wanted and I didn't have to come to do it for them.

If the fields here can be made opaque, I can eliminate the need for the lowest level of buttons that acted only as covers to hide the picture. Or! I can use the one, blank button on the lowest level, and when clicked, it shows the work/answer field(s) on top of itself. Hmmm.

I hope you don't mind all this rambling, but talking through it is helping me think. I'm sure it is a very cumbersome and unsophisticated way of doing it. I was new at it then (that was my very first project!) and never went beyond it, so if any of you see a potential problem or better way of doing something, or even that I am on the right track, I hope you will tell me.

Anyway, once the picture was revealed, the stack then went into an animation of a train that moved in with a "Good Work" sign, and then moved off again. The wheels turned and the smoke billowed, and I had to do it all in the old-fashioned flip-book way animation was done when I was a child, so that made up the bulk of the cards in my stack.

The student then had his or her level upgraded behind the scenes, and his or her name was moved to the bottom of the list.

Every time I upgraded the stack, I had to reinstall it on everyone's computers, and then they had to re-enter all the students and their names, so my second project was to write an installation stack *chuckles*.

Ok, no more putting it off, I have to try to make this work.

Again, any suggestions are welcome, either here or by PM.

Cheer,
Bantymom

[FourthWorld]

I can download other stacks onto my computer here and run them with RevMedia, so I don't have to go to the internet to do that, right? However, it looks like it also means that the stacks would be susceptible to being messed with.

What do you mean by "messed with"?

The format for the web-ready versions of stacks is more secure than the native stack format, and cannot be altered by the IDE.

The news about backgrounds was a bit disheartening, as I relied on that to allow the teacher to be able to deal with the stack no matter what trouble the students had managed to get into. But you say something similar is still available, so I've not giving up.

I think you'll really like what you find. With Rev's shared groups you can do nearly everything you could do with HC, but so much more: you can have any number of groups on a card, and share them on all card, on some cards but not others, or have them only on one card. MUCH more flexible. Sometimes a bit mind-bending at first as you get used to this flexibility, but once you get the hang of it I suspect you'll be wondering how you ever lived with just one background on a card.

[Bantymom]

What do you mean by "messed with"?

The format for the web-ready versions of stacks is more secure than the native stack format, and cannot be altered by the IDE.

Opening the stack opens the whole program, complete with the tool set open in edit mode. Even if I close that, there is still the menu bar. You would be amazed what a 1st- or 2nd-grade student can do just by clicking and dragging things randomly about. But I will deal with web-ready-ness when I get that far.

I am embarrassed to say, however, that the term IDE means nothing to me. I am guessing from context it refers to the User of the stack, the player of my game, though Wiki says it means "integrated design environment." Ah, I think I have it! On the web, what I am referring to (in my old-fashioned way) as the "program" that I use to build my stack, is really called the "integrated design environment," and it wouldn't be available for the student to play with?

Ok, it looks like I will have to go that way when I am ready.

I am currently struggling through this with what must seem like the most simple things, but I have a terrible head cold and don't feel like reading all the documentation right now as my face is just pounding. I'm just thinking logically about what I want to do, try a logical command until it turns green, check it in the documentation, write the rest of it, then try running what I have so far. This trial-and-error must seem very slow to all of you who can write a neat and tidy stack in 20 minutes, but it seems to be the way I learn.

I'm working on the guts of it first, the present-word-check-answer-reveal-picture-piece part, then I'll put all the other bits around it, like the teacher interface (such a fancy word for me), the part that supplies the words, the part that tracks student progress, and the rewards. I am really looking forward to the nifty things I am going to be able to do for the reward!!!! (*imagines the pictures exploding into a scattering of fireworks*)

Progress so far:
Picture is in place, buttons and fields for the words in place, figured out how to click on the response field to make the writing cursor blink (yea!!!). Am now relearning about the variables.

I will try to keep questions to this forum limited to things that really stump me.

[Hyperactive]

Dear Bantymom,
I too have been an ardent Hypercard user since the late eighties - running everything in my small business from diaries to invoicing and stock controlling. Basically it automated everything that wasn't just straight creative writing!

Hypercard and Rev Media: I'm in a good position to assure you that Rev Media will give you precicely what Hypercard did - but with more colour and re-sizing: Unlike Hypercard, your new applications and gizmo's will look as professional as Apple's own stuff.

Stand-alone: This is just an expression which describes a stack that will run on any kind of PC, without requring the original programme... Something that HCard never did: You always required the Hypercard programme (and the Preferences panel) to run a stack. So forget that issue.

Backgrounds: RunMedia allows many backgrounds (which personally I seldom need); essentially, as long as you create everything you need as a 'background' at the beginning of a new Stack - then 'Group' all the things you've created - each new card will open with these items on it; behaving just like Hypercard. The drawback is if you need to ADD something new to the backgroud after you've created lots of new pages; in this case you need to create your new item on the first 'page', and go through a small routine to make this additional 'group' join up to the rest of the stack. You will now have two backgrounds: But you will not be aware of this, since the additional background will operate as if it's just part of the original background.

There is an advantage to muli-backgrounds, but this is less apparent to simple users like myself!

Personal Opinion: I think the Browser Plugin system is not (yet) for you. It confuses the simplicity of just opening and using things. I have spent quite some time unpicking OSX's desire to make everything 'connect'. Not helpful for people who have particular needs for their PC's... Don't I just HATE waiting for iTunes to yawn and then very slowly open (and then require long-winded updating) just to play thirty seconds of an audio track!

To sum up, I'm now a few years into using Rev Media, and can truely state that it does the same and more than Hypercard. For people like you and me that is (Sorry Rev - I realise your app can reach the moon; but I only want to get to my garage!). But it does require time to re-jig some of the old HCard ideas. And the good news is the language code is in many cases more simple-stupid! So take heart.

Sorry I can't help you on the programming side, since like all teachers and ordinary folk, I'm only just one step ahead of the beginners!

Hyperactive

[Bantymom]

Dear Hyperactive,

Thank you for the kind post!

When I used Hypercard all those many years, pounds, and gray hairs ago, it was already being abandoned. I don't even remember how I found the program, but there was no documentation and I had to scrounge for information. My little stack for spelling was all I ever made. I was just blown away, though, with even the thought of the things I had heard it was capable of!

I'd forgotten almost everything I knew about Hypercard when I found this, desperately looking for a way to program for my classroom without needing to go back to school and start completely over (my first programming experience was with punch cards and a Wang card reader that looked like a toaster!)

I won't be able to make the Stand-alones, but with StackRunner, I'm doing ok and am very happy, as I do like the simplicity of just opening and using things. It has the added advantage for me that my students can't possibly mess it up.

I'm slowly getting the hang of how backgrounds are used now, making mistakes as I go, but gaining more understanding. Everything is complicated for me still, as I am probably one of the simplest users of all, plodding through everything with the inelegant brute force of many many very basic commands (I am still afraid of functions, for heaven's sake).

As for OSX's desire to make everything 'connect,' I don't seem to be experiencing that. The few audio clips I've imported have played wonderfully for me on demand when needed. LOL, I don't think I've even ever opened iTunes for anything at all, come to think of it.

Like I said, I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I knew about Hypercard, so I am not too poluted by the old ideas. In most cases, I am such a raw beginner, I am sure that you would, indeed, be able to help me. Looking at what passes as beginner here (I don't even understand most of the questions asked here in the beginners' forum), I am several steps behind! And just making it to the garage with this if fine by me!

My "little" stack has ballooned into an waddling, bloated collection of boxy coding and too many cards and images. I thin down bits of it here and there as I learn something new (empty image place holders! thank you Klaus!) thanks to the very kind and patient members here, but the going is very slow. I attach a link to its present state if you are curious. There is still much to do, like getting all my images stored somewhere other than on cards, and fixing the painting card in the way that Bernd most recently helped me with (what I am off to work on right now), and there are many buttons, like the staircases at the Winchester House, that currently lead to nowhere!

http://www.mediafire.com/?bdmbf7n4rpc417u

Cheers,
Bantymom

[phleb]

Wow BantyMom! That was an awesome stack!!!

I'm going to be looking through it for ideas. Back in 8th grade I created a number of interesting stacks in Hypercard class. I think what you have done is great!

BTW, it works fine as a standalone application for Windows, however the font ABCsomething is not on my system so the buttons didn't quite look right. Try using a font like Verdana that is universal. I just looked up that issue in the forum with the search query kind of like "cross platform fonts" or something.

[jmburnod]

Hi BantyMom,

First. I'm sorry for my curious english. (i believe i progress and your messages are an good exercice for me)
Funny and useful, I love Spelling Game.

My "little" stack has ballooned
(...) like getting all my images stored somewhere other than on cards

Yes, you can store all files of images in folders and subfolders and set the filename of each image like you want

Best regards

Jean-Marc