The first thing to remember about HyperCard design is to use all of your tools to keep things interesting. Even a fairly dry stack about the Internet from the National Science Foundation I saw recently used interesting graphic frames for the text and other various text connections.
For example a frame for a portion of the stack about the southwest was an excellent drawing that suggest desert country out west, including cactus, an animal skull and a butte. The text portion of the card occupied less than half the space. Various buttons led to other cards, hidden fields and pop-ups for more information.
Even adults enjoy an interesting sound, animation or visual effect, just remember your goal and don't overdo it.
Font styles and effects should be limited to two per page.
Objects on a page should be balanced and lined up. For example, buttons for similar purposes should be the same size and should be on an even horizontal or vertical plane, or both. White spaces should be equal and lined up. For example, have the same size margin on the left and right side of the card, on the top and bottom, and/or all four. A large white space at the top or bottom doesn't look good.
In general, design rules are made to be broken more than most, so come up with something that looks good to you.
A Half Dozen Power Tips
These are tips that will make your work with HyperCard faster and easier.
These are "Power Key" options and some will work only if that option is selected on the preferences card is selected.
1. Start using and learning the command letter keys listed beside many of the commands in the HyperCard Menus as soon as possible. They will greatly speed your work.
2. When you are doing a lot of art work, frequently changing tools, remember that the "Tools" menu is a "tear-off" menu. That is, you can click on "Tools" in the menu bar, drag down without releasing your mouse button past the end of the tools box, and pull the tools box away from the menu bar. Release your mouse button and the tool box will stay there.
3. If you need to change the userlevel, you can do it rapidly by calling up the message box [command m] and typing "set userLevel to x" (x being the level) and pressing return.
4. Remember you can import MacPaint style documents (bit-mapped) when you have the lasso or selection tools selected. "Import Paint" appears in the file menu. However, remember that only an area the size of your card will be imported.
5. If you have selected a graphic with the box shaped selection tool and want to eliminate the white space around it, press [s] while the selection is still active (lines moving) and the lasso selection tool will take over and all the white space will be squeezed out.
