🚀 go-pugleaf

HyperCard is a brilliant idea, but as someone already mentioned, the
interface leaves alot to be desired.

Here are some "features" that really cause me to gnash my teeth:

    *	All cards are 512x342

	This is silly.  I can see requiring that all cards with the
	same background be the same size, or maybe even all cards in
	the same stack, but ALL cards?  Just go through the stacks
	that come with HyperCard and you'll find several that would
	benefit from a smaller card size.  A larger card size would be
	useful also.  The ROM has this neat control called a scroll
	bar that does wonders in these situations.

    *	No way to abort changes to stacks

	GROWF!  This is probably the worst thing about HyperCard.  It
	is the ONLY program on the Mac I've run across that silently
	saves all your changes.  Manually making a "backup" stack is
	error-prone and unwieldy.

    *	One stack open at a time

	Here we are in the age of MultiFinder, multi-megabyte Macs,
	and HyperCard won't allow more than one open stack.  Sigh.

    *	Home Card?

	Maybe it's just me, but I can't really figure out why the Home
	Card is necessary.  It's sort of a Finder for stacks.  Yes, it
	has search paths and the "user level" card in there also, but
	basically Home Card exists for opening stacks.  Why not just
	make an SFGetFile dialog that displays icons?  Say, that would
	be a nice idea for any application....  The preferences and
	search paths could be subsumed by menu items.  If more than
	one stack could be open at a time, this wouldn't be as bad.

There are a few bugs that are rather annoying also:

    X	Open up a stack on a screen bigger than 512x342 (I have an
	Apple RGB monitor on my Mac II).  Open a desk accessory, and
	place it off to the side.  Now click on the card stack window
	to re-activate it.  Now click on the card stack window to
	re-activate it.  Now click... what is this?  It won't come to
	the foreground!  Oddly, you CAN activate the stack window by
	clicking on one of the companion (Tools, Patterns, Messages)
	windows, but that's hardly intuitive.

	On a related note, notice that the card stack title bar always
	looks "de-activated" when one of the companion windows are
	out.  I don't know about you folks, but when a window looks
	de-activated, I don't expect it to respond to clicks except by
	becoming active.

    X	The "visual effect" command has no effect when more than one
	bit plane is in use.

And here's an oddity about background buttons and fields that confuses
me:

    ?	A background field has its position and whatnot stored
	"globally".  The text of the field, however, is local to each
	card with that background.  A background button has its
	position and whatnot stored "globally".  The hilite state of the
	button is also global.

	Both cases sort of make sense, but so do the cases where the
	text of background fields is global, and the hilite state of a
	background button is local.  It's rather confusing that fields
	and buttons are different in this regard.  I would prefer
	consistency one way or the other.  Even better, have this as
	an option in the Button info and Field info dialogs.

	You can, of course, simulate the "other" behavior in either
	case.

I'll hold off on my other comments 'til I've had a chance to read the
rumored HyperCard Script Language Guide.  Back to simultaneously
gnashing my teeth and having a grand time in HyperCard....

Charlie Allen		cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu