How to have PictureData to present a proportional scaled picture within graphic boundary

[andre.tremblay]

Hello, 

I am doing my first test with PictureData XCFN. After reading the SuperTalk Language Guide, I have this question:

Is there a setting to allow PictureData XCFN to present a picture scaled proportionally within the boundaries of a GraphicDescriptor?

After locking the background graphic the image is deformed to fill the boundaries! Which is not desirable in the case of a photograph.

Many thanks

André Tremblay

PhotoGraphex

[codegreen]

I've never heard of the PictureData XFCN before, but I think the magic word you're looking for here is aspect.

-Mark

[andre.tremblay]

Hello Mark,

I've never heard of the PictureData XFCN before, but I think the magic word you're looking for here is aspect.

The PictureData graphic property! 

You are right to correct me, my mistake, probably a mix of poor vision, dyslexia  and inattention.

That's what I am looking for, but how could I find it, unless knowing the term in advance? 

 "Dyslexics of the world, Untie!"0

[codegreen]

Once you've built its indexes you can find every instance of any language token or even non-trivial English word in SuperCard Help (in order of presumed importance based on where it's mentioned and how often) almost instantly using the Search All option in the NavIndex.

PictureData happens to return a somewhat daunting number of hits because it's an unusually rich topic with lots of options for customizing behavior, and they're literally ALL referenced there. Personally I'd vote for adding pictureInfo to the Related popup (as it deserves more prominent mention IMHO) but practically everything you could want to know about pictureData is definitely in there somewhere.

Thus when you don't know the name of the thing you're looking for often you can find it anyway by just searching for a related token, or even an ordinary English word or phrase. For example if you search for 'pictureData properties' instead of just plain 'pictureData', pictureInfo (which contains the aspect description) gets promoted from the 23rd line to the 4th.

HTH,

-Mark

[parttimeprogrammer]

FWIW I find SuperCard Help and especially SLG to be spectacular--everything you ever wanted to know and then some in one location with cross-referencing and easy searching. Once you get past the learning-programming-from-scratch stage, this is far superior to an "Inside SuperCard" book as has been mentioned in other posts. But you do need to get to that stage, which without growing up with HyperCard and upgrading through all the versions of SuperCard will clearly take some time.

[cmclane]

"Once you get past the learning-programming-from-scratch stage . . ."

From my admittedly limited experience in learning a couple different languages over the years I think there are two parts rolled into this statement. There is the "learning programming from scratch stage" - - i.e. basic concepts about variables, statement, loops, conditionals, etc.  And then there is the "learning SuperCard programming on the Mac from scratch stage" - - i.e. here's the whole event and message passing paradigm; here's what the mouse does and how you capture its states; here's what Mac graphic objects are; here are the things you can do with PictureData and lists and a hundred other things.

Not having a current "Inside SuperCard" and a half dozen other books like it does two things: (1) it makes it very frustrating for someone who has decided to use SuperCard to actually learn (or relearn in my case) SuperCard; and (2) it makes it very EASY for some potential new user looking at SuperCard to say this speedbump is too great and I'm going to look elsewhere.

Those concerned about the future of SuperCard and who would like to see it continue should give some thought to number (2).

[parttimeprogrammer]

This is getting rather off-topic for this post, but I'm not sure how to move it... 

I have the full documentation for version 3.0 which includes a huge how-to manual and the full SLG for that version. Obviously neither is current, but certainly the manual would make a good starting point to address both of your concerns. Other than window toolbars and such having changed and the OS being pre-OSX, the concepts of project building and message-driven programming, etc. are not really different in 4.8. It would also make a good starting point for adapting to a full manual for 4.8, but regrettably I haven't the time, and I suspect neither do Scott and Mark. Might be a nice project for a college-level user looking for a summer job? I don't know the economics of the current state of SuperCard to judge whether any of this is possible--are there 1000s of users, or 100s, or only dozens? Even scanning the 3.0 manual into a PDF may not be worth the time, but I would do it if it were considered useful enough. Likely it would be a significantly huge file as it would strictly consist of images. Alternately perhaps the source files (Pagemaker or QuarkXPress?) may still exist somewhere and could be saved as PDF. That too I could do, from either program. Alternately I would gladly donate the documentation to someone willing to pay shipping from Canada--clearly that wouldn't be as broadly useful as a PDF available online.

[David Coggeshall]

Hello fellow SuperCard enthusiasts  ;-)

I have been heavily involved in this style of end user scripting ever since HyperCard, and then SuperCard, and I have followed MetaCard and RunRev LiveCode for these last 30 years.

But my heart belongs to SuperCard, and to Mark and Scott for keeping SuperCard alive for these last two decades.

I first searched out books about HyperCard, which abounded in 1988.

Then I attempted to learn SuperCard in 1989, and could only find a few books which could give  me insight into the awesome power of Bill Appleton's creation.

I have taken a photo of my Hyper-Super books, and it is attached, and also viewable on the web at:

    http://comopview.org/HyperSuper.jpg

Six HyperCard books and 3 SuperCard books (in my collection), were published from 1988 to 1989.

There has not been a similar book published that I know of, in the last 29 years  ;-(

SuperCard is a programming paradigm that is not currently in vogue.

But it is, none the less, superior to most of what is out there.

These books can be scanned, and they hold many valuable lessons.

To do so would require considerable effort.

I am interested to help if there are others that can make a contribution as well.

Best regards,

David Coggeshall
San Francisco Communications
Golden Gate Safety Network
79 Rossi Avenue, SF CA 94118
415 387-8760
ibc...@aol.com
http://maplab.org

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[compteJGD]

I’ve been a SuperCard user since version 1. For some time, it came with full written documentation. For sentimental reasons, and even if I have not used it since I don’t know when, I kept the one that came with SuperCard 3, when it was the property of Allegiant technologies. It was published in 1996, and I think this is the last time that it came with a written doc.

Two volumes: User Guide (576 pages), Script Language Guide (847 pages). But I’m not sure I would volunteer to scan them… The Script Language Guide would not be that useful now: the integrated help system covers the language quite well, and it is up to date. But the User Guide would. But it would be quite a job to scan it and OCR it!

I include its table of contents.

Jean-Guy Daoust

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<HyperSuper.jpg>

[Mike Yenco]

Have you read the SuperCard 4.8 User Guide.pdf in the SuperCard 4.8 folder in the Applications folder?  I'm not quite following why you would want to scan and OCR an older outdated version when you have an up-to-date version already.  Am I missing something here?

[Charles McLane]

In the SuperCard User Guide “can” appears on 149 pages

“Your application can create Paint and Draw graphics “

“you can add capabilities through external commands and functions using Apple’s Xcode “

“You can even communicate with other Macintosh applications using AppleScript, “

“you can turn your prototypes into full applications by adding the appropriate combination of SuperTalk and external commands / functions “

“Each SuperCard project can contain many different custom windows that can be opened at any time and in any combination. “

“rectangle and polygon buttons that can have the graphic attributes of draw objects such as patterns and colors for lines and fills “

“Buttons can also be various controls and indicators you have seen throughout the Mac OS such as sliders, popup menus, progress bars, tabs, and more. “

“You can use fields in your application to let users take notes and print data “

“SuperCard can also utilize graphics that reside outside of the program (externally) “

“SuperCard allows the use of resources such as sounds, XCmds, XFcns and icons from within your project.The advantage of using resources is that you can share some very fundamental work, such as the design of an icon or cursor, among many SuperCard projects. “

“you can import or create your own cursors “

“New sounds can be recorded using your Macintosh or imported from other sources. 

“a directory XFcn can return information about the files and folders on your hard drive “

What's a little bit lacking is the "how".

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[Joe Koomen]

He asked if you had "read" the User Guide, not if you could search through it. If you want to get anything out of this app, you need to put time into it.

I have learned a lot of software by playing with it; Illustrator, PhotoShop, Pagemaker, Quark Xpress, etc etc. They were easy to learn without doing any reading.

Supercard is a programing app. When I got the revised manuals after Aldus bought them, I read them from cover to cover, User Guide and Language guide. With any programing app, you need to know the programming language, to order to program. That is at least half the job, if not more.

At this stage, SuperCard is the only reason I continue on with the Macintosh Platform.

On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 5:14 PM, Charles McLane <cmc...@mclaneenv.com> wrote:

In the SuperCard User Guide “can” appears on 149 pages

“Your application can create Paint and Draw graphics “

“you can add capabilities through external commands and functions using Apple’s Xcode “

“You can even communicate with other Macintosh applications using AppleScript, “

“you can turn your prototypes into full applications by adding the appropriate combination of SuperTalk and external commands / functions “

“Each SuperCard project can contain many different custom windows that can be opened at any time and in any combination. “

“rectangle and polygon buttons that can have the graphic attributes of draw objects such as patterns and colors for lines and fills “

“Buttons can also be various controls and indicators you have seen throughout the Mac OS such as sliders, popup menus, progress bars, tabs, and more. “

“You can use fields in your application to let users take notes and print data “

“SuperCard can also utilize graphics that reside outside of the program (externally) “

“SuperCard allows the use of resources such as sounds, XCmds, XFcns and icons from within your project.The advantage of using resources is that you can share some very fundamental work, such as the design of an icon or cursor, among many SuperCard projects. “

“you can import or create your own cursors “

“New sounds can be recorded using your Macintosh or imported from other sources. 

“a directory XFcn can return information about the files and folders on your hard drive “

What's a little bit lacking is the "how".

On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 3:04 PM, Mike Yenco <mi...@yenco.com> wrote:

Have you read the SuperCard 4.8 User Guide.pdf in the SuperCard 4.8 folder in the Applications folder?  I'm not quite following why you would want to scan and OCR an older outdated version when you have an up-to-date version already.  Am I missing something here?

On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 1:26:09 AM UTC-4, compteJGD wrote:

The Script Language Guide would not be that useful now: the integrated help system covers the language quite well, and it is up to date. But the User Guide would. But it would be quite a job to scan it and OCR it!

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Joe Koomen

[Mike Yenco]

Actually, it was simpler than that.  I was just responding to the idea of someone trying to scan and OCR an old SuperCard 3 user manual and was just wondering why??? when there is an up-to-date .pdf sitting right there and just thinking... well, maybe no one noticed it?  The .pdf is of course split into two parts now... so you have the 174 page user guide and a 35 page .pdf dedicated to "What's New"... so a total of 209 pages. OK, so 367 pages less than that SuperCard 3 guide.  Well... part of it... this is 8.5 x 11 formatted and I believe the SuperCard 3 manual was smaller IIRC... so, most likely, less text per page resulting in more pages right there.  But looking over the contents that were shared above, there are also whole portions of SuperCard 3 that just are no longer relevant or don't exist anymore so that obviously is not found in the up-to-date manual.  There are numerous pages in there referencing "Roadster" ... a web browser plug in that no longer exists.  There are pages dedicated to a "Project Editor" that no longer exists (we have a Runtime Editor instead) and while that covers much of the same functionality there are portions that are very different and require less explanation as the interface is far simpler.  Scott is really good at documentation and I can't see him removing anything that would still be relevant.

So I wasn't really commenting on the User Guide itself as some source for all knowledge or anything.  Just basically was pointing to it and asking the question "have you read it" to see if there was an awareness that it exists AND... in particular, related to this idea of trying to scan or OCR the old, out-of-date SuperCard 3 User Manual I was curious to see if there was some portion where it was felt the SuperCard 3 manual actually had covered something still relevant that the new User Manual wasn't doing as well.

There have always been, and always will be areas outside the scope of the SuperCard User Guide...  it is not the AppleScript User Guide... it is not the Apple User Interface Guidelines...  it is not a GarageBand manual... it is not a Pixelmator manual... it is not an Objective-C and Xcode manual... etc.  It touches on the support for things you might create elsewhere and say you "can" use some of that with SuperCard... and it generally does explain "How" in that context OR...  by the nature of how things are set up you can open up SuperCard Help and do a topic search and find out the "how" there.  There isn't much point in it being a duplicate of the help syntax documentation... it just needs to point you in the right direction.  There is also something else at play here... SuperCard can be many different things to many different people.  This is not some single-use, single-function type of app so trying to explain every detail of every aspect of where you could go with things isn't practical.

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Joe Koomen