SuperCard in Parallels

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Scott

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Jun 6, 2020, 12:01:56 PM6/6/20
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For those of you considering a new Mac, or upgrading to macOS Catalina, we have put together a video that walks you through the process of using Parallels Desktop to create a virtual machine to run SuperCard in Catalina.

This process is quick (not including macOS download and install time), easy, and SuperCard performs quite well in this environment.


Enjoy!

Drs Mark Schonewille

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Jun 8, 2020, 12:00:37 PM6/8/20
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Can you change the settings of the group, in such a way that pressing
the reply button in my e-mail app makes the reply go to the group rather
than the author of a particular message?

I have been running SuperCard in VirtualBox for quite a while now. I'm
happy with it, except that VB shows an error when OSX shuts down, but
that doesn't seem to be a real problem.

The Facebook group shows SC running on my Win10 laptop:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/supercard/members/

Mark Schonewille
Economy-x-Talk
https://ecxtalk.nl
https://www.nt2.nu

Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner
http://www3.economy-x-talk.com/file.php?node=programming-livecode-for-the-real-beginner

Op 6-6-2020 om 18:01 schreef Scott:
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Haroldo Mauro

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Jun 8, 2020, 1:34:28 PM6/8/20
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Will this be a permanent workaround or is Supercard going to be upgraded to be compatible with Catalina?

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codegreen

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Jun 8, 2020, 1:44:47 PM6/8/20
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Scott probably knows more about this than I do, but when I hit Reply in Apple's Mail it DOES reply to the group (since it's specified in the message header as the sender, which is what most email clients reply to - the msg poster is indicated as the ORIGINAL sender). What email client are you using?

As to VB last winter I did extensive tests here using Virtual Box, VMWare, and Parallels, and unfortunately I found Virtual Box essentially unusable because installation took FOREVER and it crashed so often (often corrupting the VM file, which made the first problem especially painful). In a week of testing I don't think I ever once got it to run for four hours at a stretch, and at least when hosting MacOS *in* MacOS it was just dog-slow because hardware-accelerated video wasn't supported - has that changed recently or is it perhaps hardware-dependent? Anyway I'm excited to hear it works great running MacOS on a Windows machine, but frankly you simply couldn't pay me enough to use it all day long on a Mac...

By contrast I found both VMWare and Parallels if not quite bomb-proof then at least consistently FAR more reliable. Both also performed night-and-day faster with Mac-on-Mac hosting thanks to the hardware-accelerated graphics.

Overall though I found Mac-on-Mac hosting in both Parallels and VMWare (which seemed to be largely an afterthought) still had a slew of annoying bugs and limitations.

Their support for Apple's Magic Mouse and keyboard basically sucked, and Parallels in particular was subject to a show-stopping bug (that had been widely reported but which they claimed to be unable to reproduce) where the mouse button regularly 'stuck' (and at the time there was no known workaround except force-quitting the VM). I did eventually discover and report a way to break out of this (which they ended up sheepishly recommending to all their grateful users) and I subsequently spent literally scores of headache-inducing and seemingly fruitless hours on the phone with their techs in Mumbai explaining in great detail why their support for Apple input devices was hopelessly inadequate.

Well to my surprise apparently they actually listened! In the current version Parallels support for the Magic Mouse is totally flawless, and the sticky-click bug (and literally every single other issue I reported) has AFAICT been completely eliminated.

Even more surprising, at least here for most operations SuperCard runs as fast or even slightly FASTER in Parallels than it does natively in the same hosted OS! I wish Steve were alive to see that, he'd probably blow a gasket... ;-)

Anyway again I have literally ZERO experience using Virtual Box on a Windows machine, so if that's your plan then by all means let those who have actual experience with it guide you.

Here on my Macs though I simply LOVE the way Parallels 15 works, and can recommend it without reservation. It's quick and easy to set up, nearly transparent to use, rock-solid, and just screamin' fast. It's definitely worth downloading their demo version and testing it head-to-head with the alternatives before you make up your mind which one to use.

-Mark

codegreen

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Jun 8, 2020, 2:13:19 PM6/8/20
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All I can say is that besides dinner and an occasional nap working on this is basically all I do. But alas it's an absolutely HUGE task! 

Remember the current version represents 50+ man-years of work, and 'porting' it to Cocoa (which is what Catalina compatibility requires) while maintaining any sort of migration path for existing content unfortunately is a LOT harder than even just starting over from scratch.

Still longtime users will doubtless recall that I'm pretty damn stubborn...

-Mark

Paul Zahara

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Jun 8, 2020, 7:53:55 PM6/8/20
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Thanks for the update Mark.

I don’t pay enough attention to the mailing list and I was unsure of your plans, and I didn’t want to join a chorus of “It is ready yet?” posts.

Hang in there.  SuperCard is a great product and is worth the update for all us old loyal users.

kind regards, 

Paul

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Paul Zahara

Cedar Hill Pty Ltd
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Kensington NSW 2033 Australia

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pa...@cedarhill.net.au
www.cedarhill.net.au
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John Ballard

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Jun 8, 2020, 8:04:42 PM6/8/20
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I would certainly love to be able to use SuperCard again. I still have things in there that I need and I purchased a reconditioned computer in order to use an earlier operating system. 

Drs Mark Schonewille

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Jun 9, 2020, 4:41:31 AM6/9/20
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Would it be an option to create a new version of SC that's incompatible
with old versions and have someone else write a converter to export
stacks from the old to the new SC? Perhaps even provide an online
service, for those who can't run two systems at the same time?
Op 8-6-2020 om 20:13 schreef 'codegreen' via SuperCard Discussion:
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codegreen

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Jun 9, 2020, 11:38:37 AM6/9/20
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Well it's a long boring story and I don't want to get down into the weeds about the details here, but the executive summary is that unfortunately it's just not feasible to open and display SC4 projects directly in a 64-bit (i.e., Catalina-compatible) version because these files incorporate proprietary Apple data formats (e.g., PICT) which Apple (thanks guys!) elected to orphan in 64-bit. So 64-bit code can certainly parse SC4 projects, but alas neither fully render them nor convert all their content to formats usable in 64-bit Cocoa (which kinda defeats the purpose of the exercise).

Thus migrating existing projects will require an interim 32-bit Cocoa-based 'crutch' app (likely SuperEdit itself) which alas will NOT be Catalina-compatible, but can extract that stuff as well as other technically non-proprietary yet still SC-specific goodies that only I grok (like the customized WASTE records that store field data), translate it all to formats 64-bit Cocoa understands, render the result in a Cocoa UI for verification/finish carpentry, and save it back out to a new 64-bit compatible bundled project format.

So yeah you've got the big picture right, but at this point all the pieces of that gnarly 'data rescue' code are done and simmering on the back burner while work proceeds on the SC runtime.

I may eventually manage to factor this conversion step into a separate headless widget which doesn't require human intervention (though at this stage that's not high on the priority list) and yes we'll probably offer a conversion service for those unable to run 32-bit code themselves (and if we don't I imagine some enterprising user will, since the process should be fairly child-proof).

But that's putting the cart before the horse...

-Mark

Collection PhotoGraphex

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Jun 9, 2020, 3:13:33 PM6/9/20
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Le mardi 9 juin 2020 11:38:37 UTC-4, codegreen a écrit :
.....  because these files incorporate proprietary Apple data formats (e.g., PICT) which Apple (thanks guys!) elected to orphan in 64-bit. ....

Hello Mark. 

If it it may help, I might be wrong, but there isn't any PICT files in my SC projects for the time being! Well, as any other type of graphic document. 
I do show digital photos with the “set the pictureData” command though!

Regards

André

Richard Pitcairn

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Jun 10, 2020, 12:23:16 PM6/10/20
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I would like to understand this better, but I don’t have much understanding about this. Is it possible to put it more simply? I can’t get what the difference is between the 32-bit and 64-bit. Is it completely different? I mean if it were possible to update SC to be 64-bit, would we be using completely different coding than before? Is that the problem? 
If the SC coding would be the same, why couldn’t one just copy and paste the code into a new project?

I know, I am ignorant, but if you can explain to the ignorant in a simple way, much appreciated.

— Richard 
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codegreen

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Jun 10, 2020, 4:25:41 PM6/10/20
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If you want to understand what 32-bit vs 64-bit really means, you should probably just Google it (it's technical... ;-)

The practical import though is that 99% of the stuff in Apple's Carbon frameworks (which SuperCard is based on) deliberately doesn't work in 64-bit. 

Carbon is a set of application frameworks released back when OS X was created that allowed existing classic Mac apps to be ported to OS X without completely rewriting them from the ground up using Cocoa (the set of object-oriented frameworks Steve brought along from the NeXTSTEP operating system OS X evolved from). 

Back when he was pushing us to adopt it Steve promised developers that Carbon would "remain a first-class citizen on the platform in perpetuity" (his exact words, I was there...) but alas that was just a bald-faced lie intended to induce Adobe and Microsoft to port their apps to his shiny new OS (which he needed them to do if OS X was to achieve critical mass and save Apple from the dustbin of history). He knew that once they'd done so and sold boatloads of copies he could just pull the rug out from under Carbon, and they'd have no choice but to bite the bullet and rewrite their apps from scratch in Cocoa. 

For the scam to work though he needed a Judas goat - or better yet thousands of them - so the powers that be at Adobe and M$ would think "Well he MUST be serious about keeping Carbon around, because he'd NEVER just totally screw over all his most loyal supporters who are putting their livelihoods and life's work on the line for this!"

But of course he would, and he did. And he couldn't risk anyone suspecting that, so Apple actually DID port Carbon to 64-bit (so nobody working on it would spill the beans) but then literally the day it was supposed to be released at WWDC (after thousands of developers - including yours truly - had forked over thousands of dollars each to travel there and see it) he abruptly cancelled it.

Even though modern Macs all have 64-bit processors, versions of the MacOS prior to Catalina still allowed 32-bit code to run in a sort of backward-compatibility mode.

In Catalina though (and for no especially good reason, apparently just out of sheer arrogance and disdain) Apple decided to drop support for 32-bit apps (which it doubtless took them a LOT more work to remove than it would've to continue to maintain) and instead devote their full vast engineering resources solely to further bloating the OS with useless crap and making it even MORE resource-hungry and frustrating and annoying to use.

That means despite Steve's bogus promise to all of Apple's most faithful supporters (who stood by them through thick and thin) Carbon apps won't run on Catalina except in an emulator (like Virtual Box, VMWare, or Parallels). Instead to work in Catalina these apps must now be completely rewritten (literally soup-to-nuts) to use Apple's Cocoa frameworks instead.

Simple enough?

-Mark

Richard Pitcairn

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Jun 10, 2020, 6:39:20 PM6/10/20
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Mark,
Yes, this helps. 

I saw the video on using Parallels to run SC. Do you think other apps like SC, e.g., 32-bit, would also run OK? Or does one just have try it?

The other question, if you have an opinion, is if there is any reason or advantage to move to Catalina? It is not sounding like it.

— Richard 
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Paul Zahara

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Jun 10, 2020, 7:37:37 PM6/10/20
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Hi

I found this article helpful in understanding what is going on with 32bit v 64 bit.


Paul



codegreen

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Jun 10, 2020, 8:20:13 PM6/10/20
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For all intents and purposes in these VMs you're just running the guest OS in a box. So there's probably obscure details that won't work quite as expected, but (especially in full-screen mode where you're not competing for focus with the host OS) pretty much everything is just business as usual (except you can pause things at any time, and start back up in a couple of heartbeats right where you left off).

I'm obviously not a fan of most recent trends in the evolution of MacOS (mostly because nowadays they're so intent on forcing people to do things however some iOS-obsessed OCD twit in their design department decided every right-thinking person SHOULD that there's usually no way to turn any new abomination off). Also Apple's OS updates tend to go through a cycle where they finally get things working well in one version, then the next two totally suck as they pack in new mandatory-and-unasked-for half-baked UI changes, and then they back off these a bit and finally get things stabilized again, then repeat...

So as a rule of thumb I almost never upgrade to a newer OS until I'm forced to, and when I do I typically skip a couple of interim versions. For testing purposes I almost always have at least four major OS releases installed in separate partitions, but inevitably end up spending 95+% of my time in just one of them (typically the oldest).

Usually when I do upgrade it's for one or more of a handful of reasons:

- Some godawful security flaw is discovered that they decide they don't need to patch in older versions

- I get a new Mac that won't boot my favorite OS anymore

- The latest version of Safari an OS will run won't work anymore with web sites I use often

- I finally find a substitute for some crucial app I depended on that had required me to stick with a nice solid but hopelessly obsolete OS version

That means for most of the past ten years I was still using Snow Leopard as much as possible. Nowadays I usually run Sierra, which still often makes me scream and bang my head on the desk (no I DON'T want to open that thing in a new @#*&*%$ Finder tab or enter full-screen mode instead of maximizing that window!) but High Sierra is a hand grenade and Mojave's not much better.

On the other hand I think I could probably actually live with Catalina if they hadn't ditched 32-bit support, but that's a total deal-breaker for me (at least until they finally come out with an affordable expandable alternative to that new obscenely overpriced monstrosity of a Mac Pro which won't run 10.12 to lure me away from it ;-).

So IMHO right now unless your Mac is too new to boot Sierra the answer would be no, but obviously YMMV...

-Mark

Bill Bowling

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Jun 10, 2020, 10:26:14 PM6/10/20
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Mark,

Thanks for the great explanations and insights. I almost feel dirty. 

Utopia isn’t  free it seems.


Bill B

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Richard Pitcairn

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Jun 10, 2020, 11:22:58 PM6/10/20
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Again, thank you Mark. I have felt the same way, of hesitation to move to the next update. I wait as long as possible. I also run at least three apps that can’t run except in compatible older OS. These are Panorama (database), though they have a newer rentable version. I stick with the old one which is fine. I also still manage to use InDesign CS5 which is REALLY old but still works if I am careful. Always crashes when closed but that does not upset things. Lastly a medical program, about 4K, that is older, though they have come out with a Catalina update that I don’t like. 

Somehow I got pushed up to Mojave, I think because of some 3rd party apps which I depend on. Anyway, thanks for this and I will adhere to it as much as possible. 

— Richard 
_______________________
Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD
Sedona, Arizona
____________

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— just like everyone else
On Jun 10, 2020, at 5:20 PM, 'codegreen' via SuperCard Discussion <superca...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

For all intents and purposes in these VMs you're just running the guest OS in a box. So there's probably obscure details that won't work quite as expected, but (especially in full-screen mode where you're not competing for focus with the host OS) pretty much everything is just business as usual (except you can pause things at any time, and start back up in a couple of heartbeats right where you left off).

I'm obviously not a fan of most recent trends in the evolution of MacOS (mostly because nowadays they're so intent on forcing people to do things however some iOS-obsessed OCD twit in their design department decided every right-thinking person SHOULD that there's usually no way to turn any new abomination off). Also Apple's OS updates tend to go through a cycle where they finally get things working well in one version, then the next two totally suck as they pack in new mandatory-and-unasked-for half-baked UI changes, and then they back off these a bit and finally get things stabilized again, then repeat...

So as a rule of thumb I almost never upgrade to a newer OS until I'm forced to, and when I do I typically skip a couple of interim versions. For testing purposes I almost always have at least four major OS releases installed in separate partitions, but inevitably end up spending 95+% of my time in just one of them (typically the oldest).

Usually when I do upgrade it's for one or more of a handful of reasons:

- Some godawful security flaw is discovered that they decide they don't need to patch in older versions

- I get a new Mac that won't boot my favorite OS anymore

- The latest version of Safari an OS will run won't work anymore with web sites I use often

- I finally find a substitute for some crucial app I depended on that had required me to stick with a nice solid but hopelessly obsolete OS version

That means for most of the past ten years I was still using Snow Leopard as much as possible. Nowadays I usually run Sierra, which still often makes me scream and bang my head on the desk (no I DON'T want to open that thing in a new @#*&*%$ Finder tab or enter full-screen mode instead of maximizing that window!) but High Sierra is a hand grenade and Mojave's not much better.

On the other hand I think could probably actually live with Catalina if they hadn't ditched 32-bit support, but that's a total deal-breaker for me (at least until they finally come out with an affordable expandable alternative to that new obscenely overpriced monstrosity of a Mac Pro which won't run 10.12 to lure me away from it ;-).

So IMHO right now unless your Mac is too new to boot Sierra the answer would be no, but obviously YMMV...

-Mark


On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 6:39:20 PM UTC-4, Richard Pitcairn wrote:
Mark,
Yes, this helps. 

I saw the video on using Parallels to run SC. Do you think other apps like SC, e.g., 32-bit, would also run OK? Or does one just have try it?

The other question, if you have an opinion, is if there is any reason or advantage to move to Catalina? It is not sounding like it.

— Richard 
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codegreen

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Jun 11, 2020, 10:22:12 AM6/11/20
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On Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 10:26:14 PM UTC-4, Bill Bowling wrote:

Utopia isn’t  free it seems.

LOL! Look (lest anyone think I'm just being curmudgeonly) I'll happily concede that if Steve hadn't been a ruthless Machiavellian tyrant we'd likely all still be using flip phones, and Monkey Boy would probably be on Mount Rushmore.

However even if it brands me as a heretical Luddite I refuse to pretend Apple couldn't have kept 32-bit support for another decade for less than they spent on those infamous custom door handles for the Mother Ship (just to, you know, toss a bone to the pile of corpses they climbed to get to the top), or maybe even admit that folks who want to open more than one window at a time in the Finder aren't all pathetic clueless decadent mouth-breathing losers who must repent.

But hey, life isn't fair...

-Mark 

Uli Kusterer

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Jun 12, 2020, 10:33:53 AM6/12/20
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On 10. Jun 2020, at 22:25, 'codegreen' via SuperCard Discussion <superca...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
If you want to understand what 32-bit vs 64-bit really means, you should probably just Google it (it's technical... ;-)

I once gave a summary of what the 32 to 64-bit switch is really about on a web site:


Particularly items 4 and 5 apply to SuperCard. The "Carbon" frameworks Mark mentions are among the old commands Apple removed. 

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."

Peter Jenkins

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Sep 2, 2020, 10:44:12 PM9/2/20
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I have followed the instructions, set up a Parallels Desktop virtual machine with macOS 10.14.16 Mojave and installed the SuperCard 4.8.1 suite into it.
So far it has worked for me but I have one problem.

In my host environment (also macOS 10.14.16 Mojave -- I don't want to upgrade to Catalina or Big Sur until I'm sure that this virtual machine solution will work for me), I have a Projects folder -- projects in the sense of "things that I'm working on" -- where I keep my SuperCard projects.
An example path is Macintosh HD:Users:peterj89:Documents:1_Projects_Current:DigitalToolbox: .

In the virtual machine, I have similar folders.
An example path is Macojave:Users:peterj89:Documents:DigitalToolboxVM:, where I have renamed the hard disk and some folders so as to not confuse myself about where I am.

Most of my SuperCard projects are for data wrangling, so I am reading source text files, manipulating the data, and writing out to output text files.
So I need to keep track of the file paths and my scripts have lines such as
put "Macintosh HD:Users:peterj89:Documents:1_Projects_Current:OralHist_recs: into tPath .

I don't want have duplicate projects folders in both the host environment and within the virtual machine, so I have made use of the Parallels Desktop feature to set up default "Shared Folders" to my home folder
This seems to use SMB to access the host environment because Get Info shows a path such as
smb://Shared Folders._smb._tcp.local/Shared Folders/Home/Documents/1_Projects_Current/DigitalToolbox/ .
and I can put a script line such as 
put "Shared Folders:Home:Documents:1_Projects_Current:OralHist_recs: into tPath 
to read from and write to files in that folder.
That works as expected.

However, if I write data into, say, a card field in a SuperCard project within this shared home folder, on quitting SuperCard, I get this error message:
"The SuperCard project "Test-9.sc45" is out of disk space! Changes might not be saved."
And sure enough, the data is not retained in the card field.

This doesn't happen if the SuperCard project is copied into the virtual machine, but only where the SuperCard application is running in the virtual machine and the project is in the host environment accessed through the Parallels Desktop "Shared Folders" feature.

I am thinking that perhaps there should be a temporary file somewhere that isn't being created, but I don't know where I should look.
I have made sure that my projects and all folders in the paths have write permission by everyone.

One time I got the error message:
"Operating system error -61 reported."
This error is wrPermErr = -61, /*write permissions error*/ .
This makes me think that somewhere there is a folder that needs write permission.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a fix?

Peter Jenkins

codegreen

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Sep 2, 2020, 10:55:51 PM9/2/20
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Reportedly this is an intermittent problem that's come and gone a few times in recent versions of Parallels, and for unknown reasons doesn't consistently afflict all users (some see it immediately, some only after a while, and lucky ones not at all).

Have you tried using regular Apple File Sharing to mount your your host folder from within the VM instead of relying on Parallels Shared Folders?

-Mark

Peter Jenkins

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Sep 2, 2020, 11:42:43 PM9/2/20
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Thanks Mark

No, I hadn't thought of accessing the host environment through "Connect to Server...".
I guess that I thought that the Shared Folders feature would be best because Parallels would have tested, debugged and generally polished it until perfect.  :-)

So I have added a "Connect to Server" entry to my projects folder and everything is working as it should.
Problem solved!

Peter

Ian Bridges

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Nov 10, 2020, 7:25:37 PM11/10/20
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Thanks for the update Mark. Stéphane Leys once said to me that if someone of your skills hadn't ported SC to Cocoa by now then it must be impossible. I'm pleased to hear your stubbornness pushes back on that. It adds a glimmer of light to the 'foreseeable future' for Supercard. I've been on the journey with SC since version 1.0 and it has to be the software that's given me the most joy in my computing life. When I read about needing to use Parallels, I felt that was a sign of the beginning of the end, but you've provided some hope. I'm sure I'm not alone here in appreciating the extreme dedication, skill and hard work you've put into this, and continue to put in, over the years. Thanks Mark. And Scott too - not to be underestimated!

Regards
Ian B 

Ricardo Salvador

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Nov 10, 2020, 7:31:13 PM11/10/20
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Hear, hear, on all counts!

(Thanks for voicing this, Ian.)

r

On Nov 10, 2020, at 7:25 PM, Ian Bridges <i...@planetark.org.au> wrote:

Thanks for the update Mark. Stéphane Leys once said to me that if someone of your skills hadn't ported SC to Cocoa by now then it must be impossible. I'm pleased to hear your stubbornness pushes back on that. It adds a glimmer of light to the 'foreseeable future' for Supercard. I've been on the journey with SC since version 1.0 and it has to be the software that's given me the most joy in my computing life. When I read about needing to use Parallels, I felt that was a sign of the beginning of the end, but you've provided some hope. I'm sure I'm not alone here in appreciating the extreme dedication, skill and hard work you've put into this, and continue to put in, over the years. Thanks Mark. And Scott too - not to be underestimated!
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Jonathan Feinstein

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Nov 10, 2020, 8:58:11 PM11/10/20
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Yes. A heroic effort! 

J/


parttimeprogrammer

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Nov 10, 2020, 10:25:58 PM11/10/20
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Absolutely agree! Please keep up the good work!

HD

Dave Francis

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Nov 11, 2020, 12:46:35 AM11/11/20
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Heroic indeed. Thank you for all you've accomplished and all you're continuing to accomplish.

saunders...@gmail.com

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Jan 8, 2021, 8:26:16 PM1/8/21
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which of highSierra or mojave works better with supercars within parallels catalina?

Joe Koomen

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Jan 8, 2021, 10:22:09 PM1/8/21
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I'm not using Parallels, but SC definitely works better on High Sierra than on Mojave. Mojave ignores the commands of several XCMDs/XFCNs.

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Joe Koomen

MARK LUCAS

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Jan 8, 2021, 10:31:45 PM1/8/21
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Which ones?

-Mark

Joe Koomen

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Jan 9, 2021, 3:14:42 PM1/9/21
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Offhand, I think these three were the ones I noticed right away.

ATSFontActivate
ATSFontDeactivate
CFReplace

Joe

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Joe Koomen

MARK LUCAS

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Jan 9, 2021, 5:21:56 PM1/9/21
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CFReplace isn't one of mine, is it?

FWIW ATSFontActivate appears to work here in Mojave (at least with TrueType fonts).

Can you please send me a sample?

Thanks,
-Mark

Joe Koomen

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Jan 10, 2021, 4:28:57 PM1/10/21
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CFReplace isn't one of yours Mark. It's for a pop-up calendar that I've been using for years. I can't even find out where I got it from originally, now that I've started searching.

Now that I've looked into it closer I can see that the Issue with the Font functions is (A) stupid new Retina display doesn't size fonts properly (B) Fields with 'special font' aren't big enough to display last line anymore (C) Joe is inattentive and unobservant.

The problem with the Calendar might also be fonts as well.

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Joe Koomen

MARK LUCAS

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Jan 10, 2021, 6:31:48 PM1/10/21
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If it was built using the SC Xcode XCmd templates (and the author bothered to configure it properly), it should return a copyright msg if you pass it a bang ('!').

-Mark

Joe Koomen

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Jan 17, 2021, 6:49:41 PM1/17/21
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I think SuperCard can already do this function natively, so I just need to do some recoding to fix this.

Thanks

Joe

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Joe Koomen

MARK LUCAS

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Jan 18, 2021, 12:22:29 AM1/18/21
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It appears to work properly here…

???

-Mark

Guillermo (Bill) Yriberri

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Feb 17, 2023, 7:33:16 AM2/17/23
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Hello to Mark, Scott and all the loyal members of the SuperCard family! 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen any reference here, in a couple of years, on progress toward the conversion of SuperCard to 64-bit Cocoa. Mark’s comment about the original version representing “50+ man-years of work” is telling. This is indeed a huge undertaking, but a necessary one, for SuperCard to continue well into the future. And to a man (or woman) here, we are all indebted to the tremendous work of Scott and Mark, and know they are doing all they can to make this happen. Greatly appreciated!

If, or when, you can, can you give us a bit of an update? Something to keep our spirits up at least. 

And this question to Mark. If there was the funding, would it be feasible, at this stage, to take on another engineer such as yourself to divide up the work? Would it be possible to find an ex-SuperCard programmer around these days? Just curious.

Thanks for your reply in advance. 

André Tremblay

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Mar 3, 2023, 10:03:33 PM3/3/23
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Hello SuperCard users,

Le 17-févr.-2023 à 07:33:16, Guillermo (Bill) Yriberri <billyr...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Hello to Mark, Scott and all the loyal members of the SuperCard family! 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen any reference here, in a couple of years, on progress toward the conversion of SuperCard to 64-bit Cocoa. … 

If, or when, you can, can you give us a bit of an update? Something to keep our spirits up at least. 

And this question to Mark. If there was the funding, would it be feasible, at this stage, to take on another engineer such as yourself to divide up the work? Would it be possible to find an ex-SuperCard programmer around these days? Just curious

As a loyal SuperCard user I have the firm intention to use and script with SuperCard over the next years, hopefully until the end of my professional activities. 

Because mainly of SuperCard, I had to restrict the most recent desktop Macintoshs of the office to MacOS Mojave. With the pressure mounting to upgrade to the more recent MacOS because of upgrades compatibilities with other softwares, I have been considering, on stations that needed both the use of the more recent OS and SuperCard, to use dual computers with a KVM or to install Parallels with a MacOS virtual machine. 

With the hope of a seamless integration of the other softwares and SuperCard, as they work in combination, about six weeks ago I have decided to give first a try to Parallels 18 on a clean install of MacOS Monterey on a test MacMini, motivated by the excellent video tutorial provided by Scott some years ago:


It was easy and straightforward, it worked exactly as presented with these new versions of the MacOS and Parallels. I was especially delighted when I launched a SuperCard standalone on a MacOS Mojave virtual machine that connected immediately to another SuperCard standalone on the network, acting as a server, through AppleEvents. 

I would like to report this success to our fellow SuperCard users!

Things started to get more complicated when I tried to do the same on the real main working computer by doing migration of MacOS Monterrey and migration of MacOS Mojave on the virtual machine. Issues developed, related to the particular set-up of this computer and not to SuperCard. Even though I was in 'Trial Mode', I've been delighted by the quick and professional support by the Parallels teams, that efficiently helped me to solve the main issue caused by the migration process of the MacOs of the virtual machine. 

During a screen sharing session, having to wait for Apple's installation, I explained why I was trying Parallels to the technician and showed him the Solution Etcetera web page, presented SuperCard and the 32 bit MacOS issue. He seemed genuinely impressed with SuperCard and when I asked him if his company could 'help' to solve such a software engineering issue, he replied;  “Most certainly”!

OK! It's not of my business, but nevertheless, here are the basic informations I've been communicated:

Contact for 64 bits migration: 
• Phone: 425-282-6448

I've started this process of upgrading three weeks ago, so far it has been uneasy, mostly related to the peculiarity of the computer setup and the learning curve of those system and softwares 'improvements'! 

So far, so good with SuperCard, in all honesty I didn't have much time to script, the most problematic issues are related to drag click, double clicks, menubar and taming the 'Coherence mode' with multiple spaces. All of those interface glitches might just be caused by my inexperience with both Monterey and Parallels. 

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

All along I've keep wondering “Why Apple haven't done what Parallels is doing?”, “Why Apple have let us down and is so detrimental to its long time users base that have invested so much of themselves for lasting achievements?”.

I am grateful to buy licences from Parallels, I would be happier to fund Solutions Etcetera to help SuperCard to move forward! 

Is there anything we can do to help? 

My best encouragement to Mark and Scott!

André Tremblay
PhotoGraphex
403 Saint-Claude
Montreal  Qc  Canada, H2Y 3B6

T 514 393-9979
www.photographex.com

Guillermo Yriberri

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Mar 10, 2023, 5:36:43 AM3/10/23
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André Tremblay wrote:

"... All along I've keep wondering “Why Apple haven't done what Parallels is doing?”, “Why Apple have let us down and is so detrimental to its long time users base that have invested so much of themselves for lasting achievements?”.

I am grateful to buy licences from Parallels, I would be happier to fund Solutions Etcetera to help SuperCard move forward!  Is there anything we can do to help?

My best encouragement to Mark and Scott!"

--------

My sentiments exactly! 
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