LiveCode Forums.

The People at SuperCard have just sent me a message about the latest
(and supposedly last) Beta of version 4.8 of SuperCard (it's been in Beta for 2 years):

http://www.supercard.us/supercard-48-beta.html

so I've downloaded the thing and started it up on my Mac OS 10.7.5 polycarbonate iMac . . .

Now, any conclusions I come up with here could be excused by saying that I am either
conditioned or brainwashed by LiveCode: having been REALLY brainwashed
at an earlier stage in my life I can categorically state the second possibility is not true.

This is NOT meant to be a critique of SuperCard , it IS meant to be a critique of LiveCode, even if, for various odd reasons it does not look like one.

Alright, who are you, and what have you done with Richmond

The SuperCard scriptEditor is far, far better
than the LiveCode one if you don't want to think or have
any freedom of movement. While I can see that it might be a good thing, rather like PowerPoint
is a good thing for people who like slide-shows, it makes SuperCard
look like a plastic bath-toy, while LiveCode's scriptEditor looks (and functions) like the real-deal.


More tomorrow.

Ho, Ho, Ho . . . I don't think anyone round here is getting "bogged-down" in identity theft.

Although, I just saw a ghost stalking the Forums:

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 24, 2018 9:07 pm

The SuperCard scriptEditor is far, far better
than the LiveCode one if you don't want to think or have
any freedom of moving. While I can see that it might be a good thing, rather like PowerPoint
is a good thing for people who like slide-shows, it makes SuperCard
look like a plastic bath-toy, while LiveCode's scriptEditor looks (and functions) like the real-deal.


ClickScript.png

That's not SuperCard's script editor.

That's not SuperCard's script editor.

It may not be, but it is what end-user's are most likely to pick up on via a drop-down menu.
If THIS is the scriptEditor, then it is not as obvious:

Both SuperCard and LiveCode have, at one time or another, laid claim to being the heirs/children of Hypercard

And what I am doing now is trying to see which really can claim that, and by that I really
mean the relatively accessible way that the "guts" of Hypercard could be got at by
people starting out in programming.

I am currently running what is trendily called a "focus group" with 3 teenagers who did some
very basic LiveCode stuff last Summer: I am asking them to try to work out how to do the same sort of stuff with the SuperCard Beta.

I managed to pick up several Intel Polycarbonate iMacs a month ago for $50 apiece.

They, and I, missed the "SuperScript" editor completely on our first session today.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:26 pm

That's not SuperCard's script editor.

It may not be, but it is what end-user's are most likely to pick up on via a drop-down menu.

dropD1.png

If THIS is the scriptEditor, then it is not as obvious:

scriptThing.png

usability.jpg

What did they say when you noted this SuperCard issue in the SuperCard forums?


As for the core exercise, learnability is great; pursuing learnability in the 21st century via comparison with HyperCard maybe not so much:

The True Power of HyperCard
http://livecodejournal.com/features/the ... rcard.html

learnability is great

Indeed! I have had children learn how to do various things using
BBC BASIC on my collection of BBC Micros (1982-88) without undue trouble.

The "problem" as far as there is one with BBC BASIC is that one is faced with
a black screen with nary a GUI in sight, so the poor, benighted teacher has
to deliver everything in the old "funnel and spoon" method, which while
undoubtedly teaching children programming in a rather rigid, didactic fashion,
does not encourage children (except for a few exceptions: I had one last year
who went away and wrote a side-scroller on a BBC emulator) to explore and
work and develop on their own.

HyperCard, however antiquated it now is (extremely), was the first 'thing' where
one could go away and teach yourself, even without the dubious benefit of a
textbook.

I am not really interested in using HyperCard as a yardstick, but I am interested in
how quickly young people can get 'up and running' with various GUI-based programming
environments.

For this I am starting with the SuperCard beta I mentioned earlier, then I shall go
onto HyperNext : http://www.tigabyte.com/

and HyperStudio : https://www.mackiev.com/hyperstudio/select.html

I suspect that LiveCode will emerge "smelling of roses" compared with these.

That is not to say that, from a pedagogical point of view at least, some features from these others
might not be adopted for LiveCode.

All the crazy willingness to try new things

Yes, but that presupposes you have a set of tools that makes that a comparatively painless exercise.

Ivan wanted to know why there appeared to be 2 programming applications in the Supercard folder:
So I suggested opening our first effort in the "other" one (SuperEdit):

We opened it is Supercard and SuperEdit at the same time so we could do the old Compare-&-Contrast thing.

Open in Supercard on the left.

Open in SuperEdit on the right.

At which point I thought, "Where's the WYSIWYG ?"

Further digging around made me wonder if SuperEdit was not
a clunky way of importing resources into a stack.

One certainly could NOT access objects on a card as far as I could tell.

The 3 kids just went very quiet, and Boyana asked what the use of SuperEdit was.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:26 pm

dropD1.png

This thread seemed like a good excuse to catch up with Mark Lucas, the lead engineer for SuperCard. He drew my attention to the "Script Hierarchy" submenu. Check it out. He's got instant access to everything in the message path there, with the object you've selected at the top.

I did suggest that the labeling of that submenu might be clearer, but neither of us could come up with a better name for accessing everything in the script hierarchy than "Script Hierarchy". He doesn't work on the IDE (others on the team do that; Mark is very focused on engine development), but if we come up with one here I'll pass it along.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 25, 2018 2:44 pm

openInBoth.png

We opened it is Supercard and SuperEdit at the same time so we could do the old Compare-&-Contrast thing.

Open in Supercard on the left.

Open in SuperEdit on the right.

At which point I thought, "Where's the WYSIWYG ?"

Have you considered the possibility that there are two editing environments because they support two different workflows?

You stopped a double-click short of seeing the card contents. Just as you double-click a window in the Project view to open a list of cards in the window, if you double-click any card in that view it'll open the card.

SuperEdit is one of SuperCard's unique contributions to the xTalk world, one no other has undertaken the expense of recreating. As Bill Appleton (SC's original creator) once described it to me in an interview I did with him the year SC premiered:

Well, part of the thing with HyperCard is that HyperCard always is HyperCard - it could never be anything else. You're always surrounded with HyperCard. That's fine, if HyperCard is exactly what you want.

But I wanted to come up with a system where you could design your own multimedia authoring systems. So in other words, HyperCard is a multimedia environment, and SuperCard is an authoring system that builds multimedia environments.

And that's why we needed the SuperEditor, to be able to get outside the universe, with all the scripts turned off, and edit anything, under the hood, with complete power. And then once you get your world off the ground with SuperEdit, then you can build the editing tools that YOU want right into your environment. And actually I think that's something that a lot of people have missed about SuperCard, that the RunTime Editor exists as an example of what you can do to integrate editing into your stackware.

Some people love SuperEdit. Others rarely if ever use it. I was in the former camp. It was something I sorely missed when I first started making multi-platform apps with MetaCard/LC back in the day.

I've learned to work well enough in an environment where the script interpreter is always running. But there is something very nice about having an environment dedicated to construction without ever needing to worry about sticking your fingers between the fan blades while they're moving.

It may not be very xTalk-like, but that's what the SuperCard app is for. SuperEdit was inspired in part by Think C, the IDE Appleton was using when he made it. If you happen to like it, you'll like it a lot. And if not, there's no requirement to use it.

I'm finding this whole read to be extremely interesting. Thank you (both) for the points of view.

I also LOVED SuperEdit and I really never used the "Runtime Editor" in my (few) SC years!