HyperCharts 3.1 was written on a Macintosh LC with 6 MB RAM, 12 inch color display and arithmetic coprocessor MC68881 under System 7 with TuneUp and HyperCard 2.1 (german version). The XCMDs were developed with Think C 5.0.
In addition, the stack was tested successfully on a Macintosh Plus with 1 MB RAM under System 6.0.7 and HyperCard 2.0 (german version). As well, a successful test was conducted on a PowerBook Duo 210 with 8MB RAM under System 7.1.
Generally following minimum configuration should be enough:
- Macintosh Plus
- System 6.0.4
- HyperCard 2.0
HyperCharts 3.1 runs only together with HyperCard. It supports Color QuickDraw (256 colors recommended).
INSTALLATION
If you like to operate HyperCharts from your hard disk, just copy the folder "HyperCharts 3.1" onto your hard disk.
Within the Finder you can start HyperCharts by double clicking its icon. Instead you could as well start HyperCard first and then open HyperCharts by choosing the "Open Stack" option in the "File" menu.
HyperCharts expects to run under Apples version 2.x of the "Start" stack. If you use a "Start" stack of your own or any other type of "Start" stack, you should deactivate this "Start" stack by changing its name (to "MyStart" for example) and use the original "Start" stack instead.
UPDATE FROM VERSION 3.0
If you already worked with HyperCharts 3.0 before, version 3.1 provides a method to transfer your data out of HyperCharts 3.0 into the new stack. To do the transfer, you would have to follow the steps below:
1. Open the folder that contains HyperCharts 3.0 while in the Finder
2. Duplicate HyperCharts 3.0 by choosing the respective option in the
"File" menu
3. Change the name of the duplicate to "HyperCharts 3.0" (the name of the
original 3.0 version should be "HyperCharts", so there will not be an
error by the Finder)
4. Place the duplicate named "HyperCharts 3.0" into the folder that
contains HyperCharts 3.1
5. Launch HyperCharts 3.1 by double-clicking it´s icon
6. Click the button "Update"
All cards of your old HyperCharts stack will be transferred into the new one. It is only necessary to place a duplicate of your old HyperCharts stack into the folder that contains HyperCharts 3.1 after naming the old version "HyperCharts 3.0" and before you launch HyperCharts 3.1. Pressing the update button while not doing so will cause the update to fail.
As soon as the update is done, you will receive a message in the message box. After that the "update" button as well as the duplicate of your old HyperCharts stack can be deleted.
The update as well works with HyperCharts 2.1. In that case, you would only have to modify the stack name from HyperCharts 3.0 to HyperCharts 2.1 in the script of the update button on HyperCharts contents card before you follow above steps.
NEW FEATURES OF VERSION 3.1
Version 3.1 just corrects some minor bugs in the english version of HyperCharts 3.0.
NEW FEATIRES OF VERSION 3.0
New XFCN "PickColor" allows to choose an RGB-Color for any of the four value areas through Apple's Color Picker.
Fields "Minimum" and "Maximum" allow optional minimum and maximum borders for groups of high values with small variance.
NEW FEATURES OF VERSION 2.1
First of all, the card layout of HyperCharts experienced some cosmetic changes. In addition, it now has a button that shows the current graph upon clicking.
The XCMDs can now be used without the HyperCharts stack without "bombing" because their enhanced error trappig.
Therefore, the checks of all numeric values from HyperTalk can be omitted as they are done by the XCMDs instead.
Numeric values will be accepted with decimal comma (i.e. "2,347"; european notation) or decimal point (i.e. "2.347").
If there occurs an error upon calling one of the XCMDs, it will be stopped with the error code retuned in HyperCard´s "the result".
FUNCTIONS
The stack allows storing numeric values in up to four value areas per card. Besides, its cards are used to keep all additional Headlines etc. All cards are archieved in a directory on the first card of HyperCharts automatically.
The XCMDs and the XFCN that come with HyperCharts do the main work: They draw the charts that result from the data stored in the cards.
The functions at a glance:
• Display of a fever-, column- or pie type diagram
• color or b/w display
(on color Macs optional)
• horizontal and vertical grid lines
• manual change of step width on Y-Axis
• optional minimum and maximum values
• colors changeable through Apple Color Picker
• export to PICT file format
SHAREWARE REMARK
This product took a lot of time and work to get it running. Nevertheless, HyperCharts is FreeWare whereas donations are alwas welcome. However, any commercial use of either the stacks or the externals contained in the stacks must be licensed.
Ulrich Hilger
Memeler Straße 33
61440 Oberursel
Germany
CompuServe 100116,2751
Internet 100116.2751@COMPUSERVE.COM
It would be great pleasure to see that HyperCharts is used by as many professionals in the Mac community as possible.
By the way I´m certainly interested in any comment or enhancement you might think of. As well, please let me know of any incompatibilities in order to allow future versions to run as good as possible in any system environment.
CREDITS
Very special thanks to Simone for her never ending patience.
As well many thanks to Martin Schmalfeld for his constructive help in testing HyperCharts 2.1 and his good design proposals.
