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Re: [Sheflug] Hypercard
Sorry, I've been out of town for a while and come back to what looks like a
hot
potato....
I don't have all the emails to hand, and yes, I didn't think too hard about
the meaning of the word "layer". As I remember (and it is over 10 years
since I actually used Hypercard), a stack of cards has a background layer
which is common to each card in the stack. This layer can have a script, as
can all the objects on it. I like the idea of having a background which is
very flexible, and has the same kind of behaviour as the layers on top. If
you want to hide part of the background for a particular card, then you can,
if I remember right. Or you can paint over it or put a button on top (this
might be harder in the context of a Web page as Hypercard cards have a fixed
size, fonts and so on). Then the elements particular to some card are
assembled in layers; the graphical bits are layered much as in paint tools.
I've been using FrontPage (despite warnings about it...) and the notion of
"theme" while superfically attractive is much weaker than the idea of a
background layer. And I think that each layer can have a script as well as
each object on it. Actually, I don't see why layers would have to be
directly supported to achieve such a package, but then a compilation step
would be needed to convert the hierarchical structure of a set of pages into
a flat HTML structure, and you might not want that since it would then be
harder to integrate with plain, seat-of-the-pants HTML coding. By the way,
I've heard people say that you shouldn't use packages like FrontPage because
they generate bad HTML that cannot be edited properly, but _most_ people do
not try to mess about with binaries directly once they have been compiled
from a high-level language, and in any case, that does not seem to be the
main problem with FrontPage, which is that the behaviour of the generated
pages is not determined solely by the HTML they contain, but also by hidden
files and magic that goes by the name of "FrontPage extensions". That kind
of magic should in my opinion be limited to the process of publishing a site,
but that would doubtless interfere with Microsoft's strategy of tying
everyone into their own code. Well, I'm not sure if this actually answers
Stephen's question. Oh yes, one extra feature; scripts allow you to hide or
show or create objects dynamically, which a fixed stylesheet presumably does
not permit. Should I be looking at Javascript??
Matt.
"Stephen J. Turnbull" wrote:
> >>>>> "Chris" == Chris J/#6 <sixie [at] nccnet.co.uk> writes:
>
> Chris> Well you didn't say Hypercard - you said "...not supported
> Chris> in HTML" :)
>
> <RANT ATTITUDE="oh, no, not another MONday!"
> CONTEXT="really tired from dealing with coders who think
> they know what users want">
> Fuckin' technicians.
>
> This is exactly why I put a strict term limit on my position as XEMacs
> Release Manager. The User does not know what he is talking about,
> because he's not trained in talking to technicians. Nor should he be,
> it's the other way around. But there ain't no techs with verbal
> skills. God, I'm tired. *sob*
>
> It's probably not your fault (and this being Linux, and a user's group
> to boot, DEFINITELY not your job); nobody teaches techs anything
> useful. (Techs _learn_ how to program and do analysis, it's a _very_
> rare individual who is able to _teach_ them anything about that they
> haven't already figured out for themselves.)
> </RANT>
>
> When you talk to users (or even techs who do something different from
> what you do) they're probably going to overload your vocabulary.
>
> If you don't think about that, who will?
>
> Chris> HTML/CSS is all about layout - what you describe is
> Chris> functionality, and that's Javascript/Java/ActiveX/and any
> Chris> other widget you can stick on a page, I'd have thought.
>
> Which is exactly why I asked _Matt_. HTML (_he_ didn't mention CSS,
> you did; and HTML _does_ have functionality: IMG, SCRIPT, A HREF,
> FORM, and maybe more I don't recall offhand) doesn't have the powerful
> functionality of HyperCard. Java doesn't have the high-level layout
> capability. He mentioned both, but wants a fusion of the two, I
> suspect. (Still pending input from Matt on this.) Plus additional
> capability (like Xanadu-like two-way links, none of this "no way to go
> but forward" HTML one-way link bogosity). But I bet Matt most
> definitely doesn't want to deal with "widgets," which require bondage
> and discipline to get them to do what you want.
>
> BTW, HTML should not have anything to do with layout. Putting any
> layout capabilities (font, color, size) in HTML was a mistake from the
> word "go". (Tables are not about layout, although that's the most
> common use in HTML. They are about relations, as any SQL programmer
> can tell you. And look what M$FT did to HTML so that Wart can produce
> "HTML" that is invertible to wart format. Arggghh.)
>
> Chris> In that case I mis-understood/mis-read what Hypercard was
> Chris> about - I was just responding to the original phrase of
> Chris> yours, which may have been ambiguous.
>
> Wasn't mine, was Matt's. And it definitely was ambiguous in context
> of this list. _He_ knows what he meant, even if he can't articulate
> it to us in words of one syllable so that techs can understand. But I
> didn't. Still, I wanted him to think what he was thinking, so I used
> his word ("layer"), not another one that neither of us would
> understand well.
>
> Remember, HyperCard is ten years older than HTML. It deserves respect
> for its age, if nothing else.
>
> --
> University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
> Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
> _________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
> What are those straight lines for? "XEmacs rules."
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