Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.hypercard:6771 comp.sys.mac.apps:6449 Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard,comp.sys.mac.apps Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!hmarvel From: hmarvel@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Howard P Marvel) Subject: Re: need info on PLUS Message-ID: <1991May29.190728.27093@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> Keywords: PLUS Sender: news@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Organization: The Ohio State University References: <1991May29.143748.1972@fwi.uva.nl> Date: Wed, 29 May 1991 19:07:28 GMT Lines: 74 In article <1991May29.143748.1972@fwi.uva.nl> zee@fwi.uva.nl (Daniel M. van der Zee (I89)) writes: >I'm looking for information about PLUS, a hypercard-like application running >both on mac and ms-dos systems. I would like to have a good idea about what PLUS >is like before -eventually- purchasing it. Especially interesting for me are >answers to the following questions: > >1. Is PLUS-mac completely compatible with PLUS-dos? Not entirely. Plus on the Macintosh can use Macintosh resources. These do not translate to windows. Moreover, you cannot add similar resources to the Plus version on the PC. Obviously sounds are gone, but so are less obvious things like icons. Other limitations are a result of the Windows environment -- Windows fonts, for example, have a bad case of the uglies. >2. Has PLUS been updated to work with hypercard 2.0 stacks or does it only > convert and run the old hypercard 1.0-1.2 stacks? Has PLUS been updated on > both platforms? Not updated. 1.x.x only. >3. Can the run-time version be freely distributed on both platforms or does > the manifacturer require licenceing fees to be paid for each copy? $495 for one platform, $900 for two, for the runtime license >4. How fast is PLUS. Is the switching between cards slower than hypercard? Considerably slower, comparing Windows Plus with HyperCard. Dump all your visual effects. Plus is quite slow if you must clean up after yourself using a paint tool. > What about scripts? Depends on what you are doing. You can show and hide draw objects pretty rapidly, but such objects are limited. >5. Is it possible to delete all PLUS-menus from the menubar and replace them > by custom-menus without the use of external commands? Don't know. >6. Is it possible to work with variable card-sizes? One card size per stack, user selectable. One stack open at a time. >7. Can different fonts be used (and printed) in one field? Yes. Plus has something called a WPField, for word processing field. Have not tried this yet. But you don't want to use many fonts in the Dos version unless your users are guaranteed to have ATM or some substitute. >8. How does PLUS handle printing? Is printing better in PLUS or in HYPERCARD. > Is it possible to print labels? Don't know > >If any of you out there uses PLUS please be so kind to answer one or more of >my questions. You would make me a happy man! Plus is an interesting product. It is not a panacea, however. Plus works rather differently than HyperCard, particularly its paint tools. One particularly irritating feature is that when you choose a tool other than the browse tool, any object on a card can catch a click even if its tool was not active. Suppose that you have a field or button defined to catch a mouse click in a region and that you want to use, say, the brush tool to draw something where the user clicked. If you try choose brush tool set brush to 7 click at the clickloc You will find that the original button or field will catch the click and you won't be able to draw anything. (Hide the original first -- a pain) Watch out for the compact stack command. Seems to be the corrupt stack command. Note that you don't get a cantmodify property, that you can't use paintobjects from scripts, that the marquee tool does not work from scripts, and that other gotchas abound for HyperCard scripters. The documentation is by the author of a well-known HyperTalk book which has been much abused in this newsgroup. It is pretty woeful. Plus is pretty unstable on large stacks. I cannot tell if that is due to Windows or to Plus itself. I suspect the former. You won't be able to bring your Mac stacks to DOS without a lot of work. But it looks as if the task is not impossible. It is impressive that it works at all. And it is really nice to see stackware in color. I have only used the Mac version of Plus to convert stacks to something that can serve as a starting point for a Dos version. If you don't need a DOS version, stick with HyperCard. If you do, prepare to do a good bit of work.