I use Hypercard, among many common things, to manage databases on the Web. The simplest example for such a website is the program of an upcoming scientific meeting. Participants submit their titles and abstracts through an HTML form. The Hypercard stack then reads the incoming data from the Eudora folder and creates a new set of HTML files containing updated abstracts and a list of speakers. This website can be found at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pheronet/iobc/titles.html. Another example is a database on the chemical structures, gas chromatographic retention indices and sensory properties of naturally occurring flavor chemicals. This website, conceived by Terry Acree at Cornell, is located at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/flavornet/. You need the right plug-in, but then it's fun to see the molecules rotating through space. The original information is kept on a Filemaker file. After each update, data are exported as a plain text file, sent to me by e-mail and converted offline to a new set of HTML files. The most elaborate web database created in this way is the Pherolist, a documentation on the sex attractant pheromones which are produced by female moths to attract the males. This database is located at http://www-pherolist.slu.se. Pheromones are important in today's pest management where one tries to get by with a minimum of insecticides. They are used to monitor insect populations and control pests via an environmentally safe technique called mating disruption. Each insect species uses its own bouquet of sex perfume. There are about 2000 HTML pages in this website containing chemical structures, insect pictures and numerous index pages. These are all interlinked in various ways, so a few changes can affect numerous files. For this reason I often end up rewriting the entire set, at the click of a button of course. The original database is kept in the same 2700+ card stack that runs the update. The scripts for updating these websites are often long and complicated, but they use just a few functions for creating tags, replacing strings, sorting lines and handling files. I am working on a direct linkup to the server, using externals like Marionet. The idea is to build custom applications for the part-time webmaster who is not at all familiar with Hypertalk, HTML or FTP.
Comments to: Heinrich Arn
For the last eight years I have worked as a developer of Computer Assisted Instructional (CAI) materials, first at Ohio State University, now at Brigham Young University. During that time HyperCard has been a workhorse. I have created or assisted in creating CAI programs for teaching Russian, Chinese, French diction for singers. I have also created too many utilities to remember them all. At BYU we teach classes in CAI development to students majoring in Humanities. We have used HyperCard for Macintosh development for years, and have found it an ideal environment for teaching the intricacies of program design without the huge upfront investment of a programming language like C or Java. I have seen amazing things come from students after just one semester of HyperCard. In our labs here we offer our students access to many computer-based tutorials, most of them programmed in HyperCard and served from an Apple Workgroup Server. We have tutorials for Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Introduction to the Arts, Italian, French, and more. And they aren't just simple grammar drills. Several of them use complex multimedia and offer features such as centralized student record keeping and report printing. HyperCard is a stable, easy-to-learn, extensible, scalable environment that just keeps getting better. We can't wait for HyperCard 3, which should give us the ability to quickly deploy this large body of software in our Windows labs. We also run a 35-station computer based testing lab, where we administer multimedia tests to thousands of students each term for all first and second year Spanish classes, beginning German, beginning Humanities classes, and several others. Do I need to tell you what environment the testing software is developed in? You guessed it--humble, reliable old HyperCard. I continue to be amazed at its flexibility. To see some examples of our HyperCard-based tutorials, go to our Web page: http://humanities.byu.edu/HRC/products/catalog.html/ . Most of the Mac-based software is done in HyperCard.
Comments to: Devin Asay
Well, I do a lot of little quick-and-dirty stuff in HyperCard, including a little thing to parse the InfoMac digests and download all the files, a few device control thingies, and some prototyping stuff. The most used things I've worked on recently, though, are the BSU Math and Chemistry Placement Exams (which were supposed to be a one semester quick fix, and were just retired this year after serving more than 8 years of duty). A way was needed to give placement exams on demand when we went to year round registration. The math department did not want to use up faculty time giving and grading these tests. HyperCard to the rescue! I wrote a quick little shell that allowed the entry of the math problems, including special symbols and graphics, presented the test, scored it, and told the student which math courses he or she qualified for based on the score. Now that it is no longer in use at BSU, I'm refurbishing and generalizing it, and it may show up as shareware somewhere along the line.
Comments to: Bruce Carter
The coolest thing I've done in HyperCard? Probably the stack I created for the International Buddhist Meditation Center, which they commissioned and used for their 25th Anniversary Celebration. The IBMC is deep in the heart of Los Angeles, by the way. At any rate: My stack, which could be described as a "Buddhist Yellow Pages", is a searchable database of over 100 Buddhist temples, most of them found in the LA region. Each record has fields for the temple's name, head abbot, address, etc. Users can search for temples that fit any criterion, or combination thereof; naturally, I used HyperTalk's native FIND command to implement the searching function. Since the stack was to be used in what amounts to a "kiosk" setting, open to the general public, I had to "idiot-proof" both the stack and the Mac (a Classic) it was running on. The solution I chose to implement: Set the userLevel to "browse", and take away the Classic's keyboard. Of course, this made life a bit more interesting for my search function. To work around the keyboard's absence, I set up a sort of "virtual keyboard" that lets the user "type" with the mouse. The user clicks on a field; uses the "v-board" to enter his search criterion for that field; and so on, until he's set up all the different criteria he wants to. When the user is done, he clicks on the "find 'em all NOW!" button, and the stack marks all the cards that match the criteria. The last thing worth mention about this stack is the "go to the Help card" button that appears on every card. Its icon is a yin-yang symbol... and the sucker rotates, gracefully and continually. I created wholly automatic processes that run by themselves, completely without human intervention. I've done other stacks, but this one is my biggest success story.
Comments to: Quentin Long
All contents copyright (C) 1996, HyperActive Software. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 6, 1998
URL: http://www.hyperactivesw.com/HCStories/stories.html