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From: tvex@milton.u.washington.edu (t@vex)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Stack Compaction and large distributions
Keywords: HyperCard, StuffIt
Message-ID: <1991Apr17.152522.3560@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 15:25:22 GMT
References: <16495@chaph.usc.edu> <45267@bcsaic.UUCP>
Sender: t@vex
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 36

In article <45267@bcsaic.UUCP> vanover@bcsaic.UUCP (Jann VanOver) writes:
>In article <16495@chaph.usc.edu> hashem@usc.edu (Basil Hashem) writes:
>>
>>3. What are some techniques that some of you have used to distribute a multi-
>>disk stack?  Supposing that the end-users don't have (or don't deal with)
>>StuffIt/Compactor/etc...  Is HDBackup is only appropriate choice?  Just
>>collecting before I going off to code it up myself.
>
>Both Stuffit and Compactor have a capability to build self-extracting
>form.
>(text munged but this is in reference to  a question about documentation) 
preferably named README, ideally a TeachText file.

In fact, the StuffIt Deluxe package from Aladdin (folks Ray Lau is now working
with) includes a couple of XCMNDs that allow the user to unstuff files from
within HyperCard. Here's an idea: why not make a clean sweep and stuff the
large files but provide your on-disk documentation in a HyperCard stack which
also serves as an "installer" (of sorts) for your distribution? That way, you
and the user would only need HyperCard and enough room on their hard drive. Thisalternative might give you even more control over your interface--just a 
and all the user would need would be HyperCard and her hard dri
thought. 

In reference to the sound question: I have also used Farallon's MacRecorder,
and have found their FPlay XCMNDs helpful, but one of the critical things
here is the amount of available memory and (in my case, anyway) how much
RAM the user has allocated to HyperCard from the finder when operating under
multifinder. The sounds, when queued in an FPlay sequence, do not necessarily
run seemlessly. (what a mouthful) I found that I had to make extensive use,
on a product that was designed to run on 4 megs or better with an average sample
size of 800k, of the handler "wait until Fsound() is done". Just another
thought, and good luck.

t@vex
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from low on the banks of elliot bay we sit and await the coming of evening.
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