• Many novice HyperCard users have asked WINDOID for a beginners' tips section. I thought about this, remembering that most of the questions asked of me at the San Francisco MacWorld Expo started with something like "I just bought a Macintosh and HyperCard came with it. Could you show me what it does?" I have therefore decided to begin this column for WINDOID. If you are a beginning HypeCard user please use the form at the back of WINDOID to send me your questions. I will answer some of the most often asked in this column.
When asked "What is HyperCard?" I would normally begin my answer with something Bill Atkinson said: "HyperCard is a software erector set." In other words, HyperCard is a group of tools you can use to easily create your own Macintosh software applications. The basic tools consist of Buttons, Fields, Graphics, and Cards. Buttons can complete actions when the user clicks on them, Fields can hold text for you, and Graphics can create a mood. A Card is always the exact size of the entire Macintosh Plus screen. When the screen changes, you normally go to another card. When you put a few of these cards together, you have a stack of cards. Stacks are files that you can copy to diskettes and give to your friends or sell to others that need them.
Your button, field, and graphics tools are in your Tools menu. You will see the Tools menu if you are at a high enough "userlevel." To see the userlevel you are currently working with, or to change it, go to the Home card (select Home from the Go menu), and click the left arrow. You will find yourself on the Preferences card. Click on the various Userlevels, Browsing through Scripting, and watch the menubar and Preference card change to reflect your selection.
HyperCard contains a language called HyperTalk. You really don't have to use HyperTalk to create HyperCard stacks as some people think. However, once mastered, HyperTalk will allow you to automatically do almost anything you can do manually in HyperCard. Some beginning HyperTalk users have trouble because they think that you have to type all the HyperTalk commands exactly like they are presented in the on-line Help documentation. This is not so. HyperTalk is very forgiving. For example, the HyperTalk command "doMenu", allows you to select any menu item automatically (this works for Desk Assessories as well.) If you use a menu item that is two words long and/or followed by three periods you will have to put both words and/or the periods between quotes. If you type "doMenu Home" into a button script, the next time you click that button, you will go to the Home Card.
on mouseUp
doMenu Home
end mouseUp
on mouseUp
doMenu "Open Stack..."
end mouseUp
However, you don't have to type "doMenu Home" with the capital and lowercase letters exactly as they appear in the example. We do this in the documentation for easier readability. All the following examples will do exactly the same thing: "domenu home"; "DOMENU HOME";
"doMENU hoME"; or "doMenu Home". Therefore, you should know that in HyperTalk nothing is case sensitive. It never matters whether the words are spelled with an upper or lower case. Even the "Find" command does not care about letter case-sensitivity. If you try to Find
"TEST" in HyperCard, you will find all occurrences of the word "test"
including "Test"; "test"; "TEST"; and "tesT".
Many beginning HyperCard users have been bothered by the fact that sometimes, when they are typing in a field, the I-beam cursor disappears. They have to repeatedly click in the field to continue typing. This is noticeable in the Home Card or on other Cards where a HyperTalk script updates the time that may appear in another field. When the script updates the time, the cursor is moved into that field and is removed from the field you are working in. To fix this, you either have to use another stack or disable the feature by removing or inactivating the "On idle" HyperTalk script. To inactivate a line of any HyperTalk script you type a double hyphen ( -- ) before the line.
A hint for moving between fields on a card is to press the TAB key to go from field to field. If you wish to go backwards from field to field, hold the SHIFT key down and press the TAB key.
One really great thing about HyperCard is that it allows non-programmers, the rest of us, to make full use of our computers without having to become programmers. HyperCard allows us to create powerful and meaningful applications with just buttons, fields, cards, and graphics. So don't feel as if you have to learn the HyperTalk language to create your application. Rather, learn to use the basic tools Macintosh and HyperCard gives you to create a stack of cards that can help you in your own area of expertise. Just double-click on
"HyperCard" in the finder. You will arrive in the HOME card, which will be your base of operations. Click on the buttons to see what they do. If you get disoriented, you can always choose "Go Home" from the Go menu to go back to your Home card. If the menu isn't showing, hold down the Command key and press the Spacebar to show it again. I hope you have a wonderful time using and enjoying HyperCard.
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