Seven™ is a books-on-screen and general purpose hypermedia program, as well as an all-around front-end to HyperCard®. In addition to using it to read prepared books you can use it for notes or texts, publish your own ebooks and hyperbooks, or create other kinds of hypermedia and multimedia projects.
By offering a flexible framework containing all the basics it makes it easy to build on HyperCard's already substantial ability to tie together different formats, medias and programs. Nothing is locked or permanently protected, and everything may be customized.
Seven Simple 2.1 is commercial software, not freeware or shareware. It is offered publicly strictly on a "try-it-before-you-buy-it" basis. (But nothing is locked up or disabled. There are no "time bombs" installed.) Individuals have 45 days to evaluate it; teachers and other educational officials have 90 days. It is available for purchase as part of the Seven package, which contains all of the versions. They all come with some extra features and enhancements. The package includes the right to distribute non-commercial or public domain ebooks produced using any version of Seven, but not for commercial distribution. Please contact us for details on licensing it for that purpose.
ΓÇó Different versions of SevenΓäó.
There are different versions of Seven. Simple Seven is the most basic form/version (at this time). It includes just the one basic set of fields and buttons plus the most common scripts. It comes rather streamlined, and is the least structured and most open to revision of the various forms. Features may be added or modified as desired.
Simple Seven books are entirely self-contained, and function as independent HyperCard stacks. "Self-contained" in this case means no other stacks need to be "in use." All basic resources are included. (These may or may not be the latest or most appropriate versions for your system, or for your version of HyperCard.)
ΓÇó Basic features.
Unlike the other versions of Seven, no additional menus are added to the main menu bar (at least not yet). What's included in the fields and buttons visible on the screen is what there is. Most of the utilities and options are contained in a single popup menu, the one second from the bottom left. There are some others. The most important is the one in the title button/bar on the top, and the one shared by all fields. Plus you can shift-click on nearly anything, including the backgrounds, to get menus of coloring options.
The only built-in multimedia is for pictures and speech (if you have version 2.3 and the Speech Manager), since these are both part of the standard HC engine. The QuickTime externals for movies are not included, but may be added. The speech is a very nice feature. If you have it, you can set Seven to automatically go through books and read the text to you in your favorite voice.
ΓÇó Comments.
Simple Seven books stand quite well on their own. But in some ways, they come the closest we've gotten so far to being "book objects", and can be used as such by other stacks or programs. They "float" between Seven and the regular HyperCard environment, and can go either way.
In more specific terms, this means that they do not "turn on" Seven, or automatically put any stacks into use. But, if Seven stacks are in use, they do not automatically turn them off either. If any stacks are in use, then they may send or pass messages to them. This would also apply to any other stacks-in-use, not just Seven ones.
This approach allows them to stay small, flexible and fast; and yet be able to take advantage of the utilities in a complete hypermedia system when needed. Since they fit in quite well with other stacks, they make excellent help, reference or accessory stacks of any kind. For instance, all versions of Seven use this for the user's guide.
ΓÇó Experiment!
Have fun. Simple Seven is set to reset and redraw everything every time it opens a card, or the size box is moved. So feel free to show and hide objects and try other experiments. It's very difficult if not impossible to ruin the view.
