SuperTalk für Websites?

[Karl Ellinger]

     Hello friends!

I have a spontaneous question for you related

to whether SC has ever considered enabling

website programming?

     Otherwise, one would have to learn new

scripting languages such as HTML, CSS,

JavaScript, PHP, SQL, and the like.

     Compiling SuperTalk into these codes

seems difficult to me.

     So, I am asking more cautiously, does

SuperCard offer any internet capabilities

at all?

     I am looking forward to your response.

     Thank you in advance –

     and all the best!

     Karl

[MARK LUCAS]

Hi Karl,

Still stumbling around in a COVID brain fog I'm afraid - please excuse any misspellings…

Both predated my work on SC, but apparently there were at least two attempts long ago to create internet-savvy tools based on SC. The first was called Roadster, and was a browser plugin. The second was a server side back-end app called Flamethrower that worked through the outmoded Common Gateway Interface.

I never met most of the folks who worked on those tools, and was not involved in their design or implementation.

Unfortunately both efforts ultimately failed. The browser plugin environment project was reportedly poorly managed, and turned out to be still too glitchy and insecure when the funding finally ran out. 

The server-side tool was in my limited understanding mostly the brainchild of Chris Watson. While promising, it too proved slow and unstable (this was years before I got ahold of the source and went on the warpath fixing crashing bugs and speeding interpretation up by orders of magnitude, so not his fault). IIRC it was also only partially and cooperatively threaded. Eventually he abandoned the project, but I've never heard the back story from him about exactly why.

Personally I only got to test it for a couple of months. I found it was very handy for setting up simple website demos, but it quickly buckled under any serious traffic load due to the combination of the then-slow-and-buggy interpreter and the high overhead inherent in server CGI transactions.

Going forward I'm afraid I would not expect more resources to be invested in either, especially since I don't recall us acquiring the source code and publishing rights.

Sorry,

-Mark

-- 

[David Coggeshall]

Hello Karl,

I began programming with SuperCard in 1989. Since 1997 I have only used it in the production of web site components.

I have used SuperCard to generate complex interactive SVG web pages (with Mark's help).

I have also used it extensively to write portions of JavaScript that create large area maps that overlay Google Maps JS API with detailed interactive floor plans.

I am planning a long term strategy to keep SuperCard running under Mojave for what's left of my career ;-)

Cheers,

David Coggeshall

San Francisco Communications

ibc...@aol.com

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[ricardo....@me.com]

ChatGPT: “Please translate this SuperCard script into code for a functioning WWW page.”

Federico Viticci, of MacStories,  has created a shortcut for MacOS and iOS that integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT into a “system service.”

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Ricardo

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[Karl Ellinger & Elisabeth Geishauser]

     Hello Mark,

I do hope that you have been spared from Long-COVID,
as your message reads well and interesting.
     So, I learned about your projects to create internet-enabled tools
based on SC. Thanks to SuperTalk, presentations tailored to
specific needs can be created, which is also desirable for the
Internet.
     However, you note that the browser-plugin project was poorly
managed in the past, showed errors, and proved to be unstable.
Moreover, the "server-side tool" was considered too slow.
     You took over its source code years later, fixed stumbling bugs,
and accelerated the interpretation many times over. Simple website
demos were made possible, but unfortunately, they stumbled with
heavy data transfer.
     Then the funding stalled, and further investments are needed
regarding source code and publishing rights.
     As an observer who was only peripherally involved but
understood the problems, you explain them in-depth now – thank
you! I am also interested to read about your collaboration with –

     David Coggeshall

Hello David, I also thank you very much for your interesting
comment!
     I gather from it that you generated interactive SVG web pages
together with Mark using SuperTalk.
     You also used the program to produce components of websites
and created large area maps with JavaScript for the Google Maps JS
API, some of which you wrote using SuperTalk.
     I acknowledge all of this as commendable. I am impressed and
express my interest in the details, as I am amazed that SuperTalk
can be integrated into other programming languages.

     I look forward to hearing from you
     and wish you both all the best!

     Karl

[John Johnston]

Hi,
I, in a fairly amateur way, play a bit with both Roadster & Flamethrower. I even convinced my shared web host, who ran macs, to install FT for me for a while.

I've also use SC to create webpages in a few different ways, writing & uploading html, images other files and also for posting to WordPress via AppleScript & XML-RPC. I also experimented with SC projects that loaded text or downloaded other projects.

I always found it easier to visualise a set to ‘records’ as a series of cards. These could then be exported to webpages or data to be read by JavaScript.
As a teacher of wee kids, I could made simple projects (3 fields and an image) were the whole class could fill in a card each and the whole lot could be exported to a set of webpages.
I even wrote a simple tutorial on the, still on the internet archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080703201205/http://www.littlefishsw.co.uk/card/howtos/basicsctoweb/index.html

The main point is for making webpages from SC merge is a wonderful thing:-)


There is a lot of talk online about moving from CMS systems (WordPress) to static site generators for blogging. SuperCard would fit that nicely I think.


Cheers

John

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[PhotoGraphex]

Hello Karl, 

 ->  So, I am asking more cautiously, does SuperCard offer any internet capabilities at all?

We are having the same dream! 

I hope in a not so far future to try to implement a solution, more specifically a gallery of photographs for their consultation on the web, in the same principle as the one presented by John Johnson and explained in the internet archives. 

André

[Richard Gaskin]

I cut my teeth on HyperCard, and in June '89 bought the third copy of SC available at my local computer store; I launched my company with it.  I've published works in nearly every xTalk made (OMO, Plus, MetaCard, even the fabulously weird Gain Momentum), so clearly I love SuperTalk and related languages.

This background is prelude to an epiphany I had a couple years ago. I can write that up if it may be interesting, but the outcome is more relevant here right now: I no longer dislike JavaScript.

On the desktop, we have countless languages to choose from.

On the web, we have no choice. It's JavaScript. That's the only thing browsers run.

As Mark noted, many attempts have been made to bring SC and other xTalks to the browser. None proved satisfying. Personally, I don't think they can.

I think the better path to web deployment is to dive in and find the path to enjoying JavaScript.

If I can help share learning resources, tell me where you are and I'll find things that may help. There's lots out there.

[MARK LUCAS]

> This background is prelude to an epiphany I had a couple years ago. I can write that up if it may be interesting, but the outcome is more relevant here right now: I no longer dislike JavaScript.

I believe the technical term for that is 'Stockholm Syndrome'…

;-)
-Mark

[David Coggeshall]

At least there is JavaScript...

Nowhere else to go...

David Coggeshall

415 387-8760 - Office

415 602-2174 - Cell

ibc...@aol.com

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[André Tremblay]

The Macintosh adventure

--------

Hello Richard, 

Sorry for the long delay, other issues came on top meanwhile, in large part the reorganization of my small office with several computers' breakdown and replacements during the last months, and the never ending chore of converting, adapting and upgrading functional solutions, that worked satisfactorily for so many years, to the new systems imposed in the name of 'progress'.

I am trying to find a solution that, I hope, will allow my small entreprise to be functional for the next decade by acquiring a bunch of Macintoshes that will give access to Mac OS of different generations. 

I haven't made my mind if I will pursue the development of the SuperCard projets with the emulation provided with Parallels or with a dedicated Macintosh running a 32 bits compatible MacOS X systems. Probably both, up to now I found that running SuperCard standalones with a recent Mac OS with Parallels to be handy and practical. There is still this bug between Parallel and SuperCard that prevent transferring the pasteboard between a lower version to a higher Mac OS version. There is a functional workaround though, but I am not so sure if I will want to use Parallels for long and advanced scripting sessions which might be more productive on a dedicated Mac with a large and sharp monitor. 

Le 12-mai-2023 à 00:03:46, Richard Gaskin <rgas...@gmail.com> a écrit :

I cut my teeth on HyperCard, and in June '89 bought the third copy of SC available at my local computer store; I launched my company with it.  I've published works in nearly every xTalk made (OMO, Plus, MetaCard, even the fabulously weird Gain Momentum), so clearly I love SuperTalk and related languages.

To make my story short, starting with a Macintosh 512 with Lotus Jazz in the mid-eighties after some years it yielded some interesting and productive results. Afterward, I've been impressed, like many of us, by the new horizons that HyperCard did let appear to the impressionable computer enthusiasts. I bought a boxed copy of HC 1.2 for the office or maybe it came with a new Mac, but very soon we, at the studio, had several stacks that were replicating and surely improving what we were doing with Jazz. 

The conversion of all data from Jazz to HyperCard followed quickly and before the end of that decade the HyperCard 'main stack' provided fifteen modules or applications in three categories; Office, Accounting and Photo Lab. It was fantastic! 

The scripting of all this taking gradually more time, I hired a young fellow to assist in the ever increasing task of HC development, it seemed as if nothing was impossible to achieve, if we would put enough time on it! 

I remembered that we had several discussions about SuperCard during this period, then the HyperCard 2.3 upgrade came and we went on the side of the CompileIt!, WindowScript and PrintReport bandwagon. Then followed the long wait for HyperCard 3 for which I was personally intensely hopeful! 

Eventually most of our projects became functionals, unless we decided to produce a commercial product, we were reaching the practical reasonable limits of what was achievable within the technical limits of the era.

Meanwhile the young programming assistant became a mature entrepreneur and went to create his own business, for the following decade I was mostly, personally, involved in the maintenance of the HyperCard projects, as a professional photography business we were superbly equipped.

This background is prelude to an epiphany I had a couple years ago. I can write that up if it may be interesting, but the outcome is more relevant here right now: I no longer dislike JavaScript.

Much of my experience with JavaScript is with Adobe Photoshop, mostly to control internal settings for color management and printing, this was done in conjunction with AppleScript. After the completion of the HyperCard projects, I was mostly involved with AppleScript's scripting for different automation tasks to manipulate documents (mostly photographs) that would require informations queried from HyperCard, to move and or modify the photographic documents with Adobe PhotoShop and then send them to printing. For instance modifying the metadata and inscribing informations from the HyperCard database in the margins, a typical example of this process is visible with this link: 

EO 9895 07 - L'halloween dans le Vieux-Montréal  2006

In prevision of obtaining a similar result for web presentation, I also went on HTML and CSS scripting. My intentions was to use AppleScript or/and HyperCard to automatically produce HTML photos galeries. Unfortunately I didn't have nor the time, nor the competence to achieve this goal and instead, meanwhile, I used the Adobe automatic web pages maker. Here is a link for an example of the same photograph done with an Adobe script: 

EO_9895_07_B001_large.html

Obviously the presentation can be improved, as for the complexity of the presented informations. The capacity for the page to be interactive would be a great advantage. I suppose that JavaScript would be necessary or useful for this?

On the desktop, we have countless languages to choose from.
On the web, we have no choice. It's JavaScript. That's the only thing browsers run.

My intention, as mentioned in this May 6th 2023 post, is to script SuperCard to create more sophisticated web photo galleries, inspired by John Johnston April 12th 2023 post presenting this example and with the principles that allow the creation of the photo sample above.  I would be mostly inclined to believe that JavaScript can be a great addition to this project. 

As Mark noted, many attempts have been made to bring SC and other xTalks to the browser. None proved satisfying. Personally, I don't think they can.

I think the better path to web deployment is to dive in and find the path to enjoying JavaScript.

If I can help share learning resources, tell me where you are and I'll find things that may help. There's lots out there.

Maybe the above story describes as far as I am advanced in this technical adventure, geographically I'm located in Montréal. 

---------

Again, I'm very sorry for the lengthy delay for replying, other occupations kept me away from SuperCard Scripting, but nevertheless I've been using regularly and somewhat intensively the SuperCard standalones I've be able to produce so far. 

And YES! I would appreciate the sharing of ressources and learn more about topics for the aforementioned goal, including Javascript. 

Many thanks in advance

André Tremblay

PhotoGraphex

[Richard Gaskin]

Thank you for including the Lotus Jazz link.  Those were some good times.

As for JS, oh so many options, but the examples at my favorite reference site may be a good starting point. e.g.:
https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_js_slideshow_gallery.asp

[Karl Ellinger]

     Thank you –

for all these stimulating references and
for the LINKS. They branch to inspirational
websites.

     Greetings from Karl
     with respect

[André Tremblay]

Hello Richard, 

Le 05-oct.-2023 à 19:48:21, Richard Gaskin <rgas...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Thank you for including the Lotus Jazz link.  Those were some good times.

At the time, in 1985, for the few Mac users that were able to launch the Lotus JAZZ suite on a fresh Macintosh 512K with an internal 10Mb hard drive … there was this incredible feeling of empowerment! 

Perhaps this sensation would be difficult to explain today to those that haven't lived through these peculiar set of circonstances as it technically seem so small stuff in a contemporary context, but in those days is was everything, it was magnificent!  

As for JS, oh so many options, but the examples at my favorite reference site may be a good starting point. e.g.:
https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_js_slideshow_gallery.asp

That's also my general idea. I may ask ChatGPT: 

"Please propose a SuperTalk script to make an HTML slide show from a specific folder."

Well ChatGPT didn't answer to this demand! Maybe I should upgrade to ChatGPT Plus! 

No…No… I got an answer:

Creating an HTML slideshow from a specific folder in SuperTalk involves several steps. You'll need to list the files in the folder, generate HTML code for the slideshow, and create the necessary HTML and image files. Below is a basic example of a SuperTalk script to accomplish this:

on mouseUp

  -- Set the folder path

  put specialFolderPath("Documents") & "/YourSlideshowFolder" into folderPath

  -- List the files in the folder

  put the files of folder folderPath into fileList

  -- Create an HTML file for the slideshow

  put "<!DOCTYPE html>" & return & \

      "<html>" & return & \

      "<head>" & return & \

      "<title>Slideshow</title>" & return & \

      "</head>" & return & \

      "<body>" & return into htmlCode

  -- Add image tags for each file in the folder

  repeat with each file in fileList

    put "  <img src=""" & file & """>" & return after htmlCode

  end repeat

  -- Close the HTML file

  put "</body>" & return & \

      "</html>" into htmlCode

  -- Write the HTML code to a file

  put specialFolderPath("Documents") & "/slideshow.html" into htmlFilePath

  put url ("binfile:" & htmlFilePath) into url("file:" & htmlFilePath)

  -- Open the HTML file in the default web browser

  open document htmlFilePath

end mouseUp

Here's how this script works:

1. Set the folderPath variable to the path of the folder containing your slideshow images. You should replace "YourSlideshowFolder" with the actual folder name or path.
2. List the files in the specified folder using the files function and store them in the fileList variable.
3. Create the basic structure of an HTML document in the htmlCode variable, including the HTML, head, and body tags.
4. Use a repeat loop to generate <img> tags for each image file in the folder and append them to the htmlCode.
5. Close the HTML document with the closing </body> and </html> tags.
6. Specify the htmlFilePath where the HTML file will be saved. This script will save it in the "Documents" folder as "slideshow.html."
7. Write the contents of the htmlCode variable to the HTML file using the url function.
8. Finally, open the generated HTML file in the default web browser.

Please make sure to customize the folderPath variable to point to your specific folder, and adjust the script as needed for your requirements. Additionally, you may want to include CSS or JavaScript to enhance your slideshow's appearance and functionality.

--------------

And with a slight variation in the demand:

"Please propose a SuperTalk script to write an HTML slide show from a specific folder."

Creating an HTML slideshow in SuperTalk involves several steps, including listing the files in a folder and generating the HTML code for the slideshow. Below is a basic example of a SuperTalk script to accomplish this:

on mouseUp put specialFolderPath("Documents") & "/YourSlideshowFolder" into folderPath put the files of folder folderPath into fileList put "<!DOCTYPE html>" & return & \ "<html>" & return & \ "<head>" & return & \ "<title>Slideshow</title>" & return & \ "<style>" & return & \ " .slideshow {" & return & \ " display: block;" & return & \ " margin: 0 auto;" & return & \ " max-width: 100%;" & return & \ " height: auto;" & return & \ " }" & return & \ "</style>" & return & \ "</head>" & return & \ "<body>" & return into htmlCode repeat with each item in fileList put " <img src=""" & it & """ class=""slideshow"">" & return after htmlCode end repeat put "</body>" & return & \ "</html>" into htmlCode put specialFolderPath("Documents") & "/slideshow.html" into htmlFilePath put url ("binfile:" & htmlFilePath) into url("file:" & htmlFilePath) open document htmlFilePath end mouseUp

Here's how this script works:

1. Set the folderPath variable to the path of the folder containing your slideshow images. Replace "YourSlideshowFolder" with the actual folder name or path.
2. List the files in the specified folder using the the files function and store them in the fileList variable.
3. Create the basic structure of an HTML document in the htmlCode variable, including the HTML, head, and body tags. It also includes a simple CSS style to ensure the images are responsive and fit within the viewport.
4. Use a repeat loop to generate <img> tags for each image file in the folder and append them to the htmlCode.
5. Specify the htmlFilePath where the HTML file will be saved. This script will save it in the "Documents" folder as "slideshow.html."
6. Write the contents of the htmlCode variable to the HTML file using the url function.
7. Finally, open the generated HTML file in the default web browser.

This script creates a basic HTML slideshow with responsive images that adapt to the screen size. You can further customize the HTML and CSS to achieve the desired look and functionality for your slideshow.

----------------

Well! I will have to look into this, it is certainly a source for inspiration to start with! Next time I'll ask for coloured code!

Regards

André

[Karl Ellinger]

     Dear friends!

I thank you very much
     for the valuable suggestions and
     for the interesting algorithms.
This inspires me to ask:
     Is there actually a SuperTalk command
     to access a specific website?

I look forward to hearing from you and

greet you with thanks in advance!

     Karl

[hodger]

Hi Karl, Mark remembers correctly about the history.  After all that, I missed FlameThrower so much I whipped up something similar with vanilla SuperTalk back around 2007.  It's called FlameTwo, named after Christopher Watson's Flamethrower.  I'll post a link in a day or two.  There's no site for it currently - It started as a Mac homepage but Apple closed it down, then was at  MacMiniColo until they sold out to Mac Stadium.  Coming soon.

Greg