This list can come in handy to quickly solve a problem. If you have trouble with something, read through this before mailing me, most likely the truth is in here!
If that's not the case, you can always mail me at: alexander.thomas@student.kuleuven.ac.be
FAQs:
•Q: I can't open TagWriter, when I double click it a message "the program … cannot be found" appears, what now?
-A: Tsss, and I mentioned it so clearly in the help files! You really need HyperCard or a HyperCard player to run this program. It works from version 2.0 on, which is really antique, so you should not have problems getting a copy somewhere. You can download the HyperCard player for free at the Apple site (www.apple.com). The latest version is 2.3.5 and is PowerPC native, an absolute must!
•Q: The size of the stack increases as I work with it. Is this normal?
-A: Don't worry, you are not being attacked by viruses or so. It is normal for HyperCard stacks that they build up "free space". This space can be eliminated by choosing "Compact stack" from the File menu. The best time to do this, is when you finish working, just before quitting.
•Q: The icon of the program has changed into a plain "HyperCard Stack" icon. What is wrong?
-A: The 'custom icon bit' has been turned off accidentally, probably because you compressed the stack in HyperCard 2.0 with TagWriter visible in the Finder. To make the icon re-appear, use ResEdit, Norton Utilities or another utility to turn the 'custom icon bit' back on. And try to upgrade to a newer version of HC.
•Q: I get the message "A HyperCard field can't hold more than 30,000 characters" or "Can't type more than 30,000 characters in a field", what the heck is this?
-A: This is a very annoying limitation of HyperCard, and the only way to solve your problem is to split up your file into two or more parts and use the "Include File" command in the "HTML Tools" menu. Read the Help file for more information about this.
•Q: The stack worked at a reasonable speed in the beginning, but suddenly it runs like a snail! What is wrong?
-A: It is known that HyperCard stacks are quite slow, but the stack should run fine on most Macs from an SE/30 on. But for some obscure reason, HyperCard sometimes slows down at unpredictable moments and stays slow until you quit and re-open it. I have no idea why this occurs, so I don't know how to solve this; the best way is to quit and re-open. Of course, you could also have opened a MS program in the background, which are suspected of having artificial slow-down procedures.
•Q: My Mac sometimes freezes when opening a file.
-A: This is caused by an incompatibility between Mac OS Easy Open and HyperCard in Mac OS 8. To solve this problem, turn off the option "Convert text documents" in the Mac OS Easy Open control panel.
•Q: The "Launch" button doesn't seem to work, when I click it my browser is brought to the front but no file is opened.
-A: This seems to be a bug in HyperCard 2.0, so if you're using that version you'll need a newer one. I'm not sure whether it is fixed in 2.1 already, but in 2.3 it surely is.
•Q: Some palettes seem invisible, nothing happens when I try to open them!
-A: You are most likely working on a small monitor, while the previous user of the stack has put the palettes somewhere out of your screen's range. So the palette is there, but you can't reach it. How to solve this: re-install the stack from the original file, or: choose "Full ButtonBar" from the "Palettes" menu and then "Normal" or "No ButtonBar", all the palettes should now be at the top of your screen.
•Q: I choose "Larger" in the zoom-menu of the "Tools" palette, but the window stays the same size. What's up?
-A: This seems like a bug in HyperCard: if you start it up with a small window, you'll never be able to make any window bigger than that (probably a memory limitation: larger windows demand more memory). So the solution here is: choose "Fit to screen" in the menu, quit HyperCard and re-open the stack.
•Q: When I view my files in my browser, some characters are replaced by odd signs and squares. What's going on here?
-A: You probably used some characters which have an ASCII value above 127 (like à, é, ü, …). There are two solutions for this: the safest one is to convert these characters into codes, by selecting them and clicking the "HTML-ize" button. The other one is to check "Convert ASCII tables" in the preferences, which will transform those characters while saving and opening. This is not as safe because it's still possible that the server uses the wrong character set.
•Q: The colors I picked in the color picker look different in my browser.
-A: This occurs when your monitor is set at 256 colors: when you pick the color in the Color picker, it will look correct, but when you open it in your browser it is "rounded" to the nearest color available. The colors should look correct with your monitor set at thousands or millions of colors. If you are concerned with your page's layout, only use colors which are in the standard palette. These are called 'web-savvy' colors and have a color code which only contains 00,33,66,99,CC or FF. To 'round' any color to such a color, select its code, hold down the mouse on the "Color code" button while pressing the Command key and choose "Round to web-color". In Mac OS 8 there is a special HTML color picker.
•Q: I can't open on a picture in the PictureMap maker, although I did copy it to the clipboard as stated.
-A: Most likely HyperCard doesn't have enough memory to display the picture. Close HyperCard, select the HC application and choose "Get Info" in the finder. In the box at the bottom right, type a larger number (not higher than your available memory, though) and re-open the stack. If that doesn't work and you're sure your Mac has enough memory, please contact me!
•Q: I hate a certain software company whose only concern is making as much money as possible and eventually acquire an absolute monopoly, by selling tasteless-designed operating systems and ill-structured programs stuffed with bugs and useless gadgets which can't even be removed! What can I do about this?
-A: Take your riot-gun out of the cupboard, and go out in a blaze of glory. Your primary target is a nerd wearing glasses and having lots of money.
•Q: I want to copy your scripts without permission, but the stack is protected. How can I hack it?
-A: Very simple: if you try to hack it, you will undoubtedly damage it and it'll be ripe for the Trash. A much easier and cleaner way is to send me a little mail at alexander.thomas@student.kuleuven.ac.be and kindly ask for the script. In most cases you'll get it for free, with comments, within a few days, and I won't become your enemy as I would in the first case.
•Q: Gee, I like this program and I wanna keep it! It is for free, isn't it?
-A: For the 1000th time: no. It is NOT free, but nearly free: it costs only US$ 5. Don't tell me you are so poor you can't even put that in an envelope, put a stamp on it and send it to this address:
Alexander Thomas
Hof ter Bekelaan 4
B-3020 Herent
Belgium
If you really can't, mail me and tell me why.
•Q: I want to perform a 2-dimensional Fast Fourier Transform with logarithmic base on an array of 2048 real elements. How can I do this?
