I'm sure that as you explored some of the many HyperCard stacks that have made their appearance since the program was introduced in August 1987, you have indulged your curiosity and examined the scripts of various buttons, fields, and cards in them to see what the designer had to type to get Hypercard to perform its magic.
You may have occasionally thought, "Gee, that's a neat idea! I'll have to remember that scripting technique when I design my own stacks," and then forgot where you saw it when you finally got around to trying some stack building of your own.
Well, this stack was created as a memory aid.
If you come across a script that you want to save for later perusal or adaption, copy it and open this stack. Click on the "Add Script" button and a new card will be created. You will be asked to give the script a name, tell which stack you got it from, and the kind object it was associated with. The information you type and the script you copied will be pasted into appropriate fields on the new card.
(If the Clipboard contains anything other than text, you will get an error message in this version. Delete the new card and try again.) There is an additional field on the card where you can enter other comments, such as the name of the script's author, more information about the stack you got it from, or notes about how you plan to modify and use the script.
There is also a feature, a front end first built around a script I found in the Home stack script, that allows you to examine scripts in other stacks by clicking the buttons on a card in this stack. You access the Get Scripts card by clicking on the black cat icon wherever it appears.
Contrary to its title, the creation and distribution of this stack should not be construed to mean that I condone un-acknowledged software theft. If you use someone else's script s and they have indicated that their stack is Freeware, you should acknowledge the source somewhere in your stack. The easiest method would seem to be to add comments in the script by preceeding a line or phrase with " -- ". I have tried to make it easy to take notes after you copy the script. You'll then have the attribution information handy when you need it.
The Master speaks:
"Overall, the thing that I'm most excited about in Hypercard is its "opening up" potential. You know,
we talk about open architecture hardware. Well, this is open architecture software where, really,
you can go inside a stack that somebody else wrote and look and see how it was done and modify it
and tweak it a little to tune it for your uses and learn from what someone else has done."
-- Bill Atkinson in "The Complete HyperCard Handbook," p.xxxi.
Thus, Bill Atkinson gave "the rest of us," the non-programmer majority, a tool that allows us to borrow and learn from those who are more proficient than we are. It is only fair that we acknowledge their contributions wherever possible, and this stack is set up to make it easier to keep the both the script and the writer's name handy.
Having said that, I want to thank Atkinson, Goodman, Paul, Shearer, Daniels, and everyone else whose HyperCard scripts have sent Show Pixel and Hide Pixel to my Mac's screen. If you see anything in this stack that looks familiar, it may mean that your work inspired me to duplicate in this stack something you did in one of your stacks. (Often this has meant re-inventing the wheel, since I couldn't remember exactly what you wrote to get the effect I wanted. I discarded a lot of triangular wheels in the course of building this stack.) While I have tried to be careful that no code went un-acknowledged, if you see some of yours, I thank you for it.
••••••••••••••••••••••••• SinceYou Moused Down This Far ••••••••••••••••••••••••
Happy stack building. This is my fourth or fifth, and the first that I have considered worth putting my name on. I hope you find it useful. If so, at the end of the year count the number of scripts you have stored in it and send me a penny for each one. I have an option on a villa in the South of France and if I can come up with $100,000 by then, I'll be able to swing the down payment. If you are convinced your contribution wouldn't be large enough to make a difference to the fund, though, don't bother to send it. Drop me a postcard instead. Drop me a postcard anyway.
Thanks.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Fillmore - Feb 27, 1988 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••
P.S. Since I should practice what I preach, I must inform you here that the clip art I used in this stack came from the packages "Wet Paint" and "MacPic!, Volume 1."
P.P.S. If you have any comments or suggestions, leave e-mail for:
Philip Mohr on MacLodge (818) 444-9850
[(818) 962-1324 after 26 March 1988]
or
Fillmore on Greycastle (818) 355-7872
P.P.P.S. Feel free to distribute this stack as widely as possible. Let's see if you can even sneak it into the software libraries of I*M users.
P.P.P.P.S. Earlier I wrote:
"A later version will, I hope, live up to this stack's name. My next project is to see if it is possible to write a button script that will go to the stack you choose, search for a script, copy it, and paste it into a new card on this one." This version has a rough draft of that feature, but it is inelegantly coded. If any of you modifiies this stack and devises a prettier script, how about pasting a copy of the listing to the postcard?
P.P.P.P.P.S. See the Get Scripts help field for information about Script Cat Burglar 4.0. -- 031988
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