Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!sdcsvax!ucbvax!sdr.slb.COM!SHULMAN From: SHULMAN@sdr.slb.COM (Jeffrey Shulman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.digest Subject: Delphi Mac Digest V3 #40 Message-ID: <8710141943.AA20451@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 13:35:00 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8710141943.AA20451 Posted: Wed Oct 14 13:35:00 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 16-Oct-87 06:28:05 EDT Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 861 Approved: info-mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu Date: Sat 22 Aug 87 09:13:45-GMT From: Jeff Shulman Subject: Delphi Mac Digest V3 #40 To: Delphi-List: ; Message-ID: <556618425.0.SHULMAN@SDR> Mail-System-Version: ReSent-date: Wed 14 Oct 87 13:35:50-EDT ReSent-from: Jeff Shulman ReSent-to: post-info-mac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Delphi Mac Digest Saturday, August 22, 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 40 Today's Topics: RE: boston expo (2 messages) MPW version 2.0 (2 messages) MacAsm to MDS (2 messages) HyperCard notes (7 messages) SE video problems due to fan? 4D random notes Bust Out Racket HyperCard PC ?!? (3 messages) Xpressly UnCopyProtected. HyperCard radio buttons (8 messages) RE: Object-oriented C (2 messages) New Lightspeed Pascal Capps' (5 messages) HyperCard Data Import (4 messages) Quark Quirk. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: NWOLF Subject: RE: boston expo (Re: Msg 21858) Date: 15-AUG 02:17 Bugs & Features Sounds like your not happy with the transcripts of the major addresses made at the show either. To be sure there were'nt that many new offerings being shown as there might have been in the past. The Apple stuff is old news by now: HyperCard , ImageWriter LQ, etc. There were several new products shown at the show which will not be shipping for some time. Although I can't be sure of them all I can mention a few: McMax, a dBase-compatible database which can read dBase-created files (not just the ascii data) and has a language (nearly) identical to dBase language for working internally - should be hot for the Tops-users market as well as others; dBase Mac was shown by Ashton-Tate as well; Odesta demoed a VMS version of Helix which looked hot; Circo's MDA debuted to a receptive audience; in the desktop publishing area both Scoop (Target Software) and Quark XPress were shown, although it appears Aldus still has the upper hand with PageMaker 2.0... LetraSet was there with RSG but it seems that the DTP wars have cooled off a little bit. Not so in the Word Processing arena, however. Ann Arbor had a countdown clock in their both showing how many hours left until FullWrite is released (651 at show's end - that's about a 27 days) and it looks like they'll be taking the lead in the race even this late in the game; Word Perfect is close behind, however, and Microsoft may be running a distant 3rd by the end of the year. Storage media seemed to be the hottest thing and there's no doubt that Jasmine had one of the hottest booths at the show (especially Tuesday when the air- conditioning failed to function). SuperMac also had lots of activity but a good deal of that could be attributed to their 19" Monitor for the Mac II which appeared to be the unit of choice for most exhibitors with MegaScreen running a close second and E-machines Big Picture hot on their heels. In networking there was quite a bit in evidence but how much was actualy new or being announced at the show it's hard to say. Hayes showed their V-series 9600 Modem and their Modem enhancer and Farallon put in their 2 bits along with DuPont (Fiber Optic system) but not much seemed to be really new. Apple did show AppleShare PC, Tops was a big presence also. In business there were a few new faces: Spectrum showed TrueForm, which looks like a good contender for the fill-in-the-blank market; Contact Systems' Gyst, billed as client management software, looks ideal for the job, although there was also Client/Mac from Software Complement which, because it is Omnis-based, may be more flexible and powerful; several new calendars were present including Rendezvous from PMC Telesystems, among others. Odesta also showed Map/Access,"the first geographically intelligent data manager " and AEC showed their Information Manager - a project-oriented database. In the publishing field Macintosh Today took a good shot at displacing MacWeek from the weekly top spot, and Robert Wiggins' Macintosh Business Letter position s itself as the serious contender for the upper-end executive market. There were a few new offerings in the music/entertainment area also: Primera Software's Different Drummerand Opcode's OvalTune and Music Mouse were good. Several new games were shown by those who do such things, although this writer did not take too much notice of them. Notably, there was a follow-up to Dark Castle; Silicon Beach had a new offering; Broderbund was there with something (but what??), Icom Simulations had previews of things yet to come, and there were indeed others. Of course there were also a few new utilities in evidence. Most notable among them was Steve Brecher's Suitcase and Think Technologies' HFS navigator, both of which are destined to be "must-haves" for everyone using a Mac. Anyone care to fill in the things I've missed - I'm sure there must be a lot. ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: boston expo (Re: Msg 21861) Date: 15-AUG 02:58 Bugs & Features PCPC had color monitors too. My impression after staring closely at the big monitors was that you wouldn't be making a terrible mistake no matter which one you bought. One interesting think about the PCPC offering is that they have both the SONY Trinitron monitor and a Mitsubishi shadow mask monitor for the same price. If you find the two horizontal bars on the Trinitron annoying, the Mitsubishi might be the right choice. The various models available differ somewhat according to the amount of anti-glare treatment. Right now the big color monitors all cost around $3000 (plus $1500 for the video card). but with the kind of demand there will be for these, I imagine the volume will ramp up and prices will fall. I bought HFS Navigator and I'm very happy with it. THINK was also selling Capps' (Capps Prime) an editor construction kit with an application editor that does what the LightspeedC integrated editor does (goodbye MDS Edit!) and a DA Editor with fewer features. Capps' also allows you to put hooks into your own custom editor that allows for boldface and so on. It is set up as a TextEdit replacement package you can link to. (More when I get a chance to play around with it ...) On Microsoft possibly coming in third in Mac WP by the end of the year: it serves them right. peter ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: MPW version 2.0 Date: 13-AUG 00:32 Tools for Developers Apple reports that MPW version 2.0 is shipping now. I saw a couple demos of MPW 2.0 and I now have to take back all the nasty things I said about MPW 1.0 -- this version has full online help and some very nifty dialog-based command fill-in features. The award for the most complicated MPW 2.0 command goes to "pasmat" if I recall correctly. The Commando dialog for this has to be seen to be believed, and you probably won't believe it even then ... Apple also said that next spring they expect to release MPW 2.1, which will incorporate a symbolic debugger and a source code control system. peter ------------------------------ From: MARSHG Subject: RE: MPW version 2.0 (Re: Msg 1972) Date: 19-AUG 21:48 Tools for Developers My only gripe about 2.0 is that to use direct ROM calls instead of the "glue", you have to code the calls as upper-case names. My first project will be a include file that will translate lower-case names to upper-case... At least you can now to \p for pascal strings. Marsh ------------------------------ From: HALL Subject: MacAsm to MDS Date: 15-AUG 22:57 Programming Is there any (fairly easy, without a lot of typing) way to convert MacAsm files to MDS (2.1) files? Thanks, Brian ------------------------------ From: JIMH Subject: RE: MacAsm to MDS (Re: Msg 21870) Date: 16-AUG 00:29 Programming BRIAN, no macasm is very different. mayhaps someone has written a translator porgram like mpw has to convert mds but i do not think so. jim ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: HyperCard notes Date: 16-AUG 13:01 Bugs & Features - The Help disk was defective in my copy of HyperCard, and the Help stack was unusable; another person's copy was OK. - The sample stacks crash on a Radius-accelerated Mac SE when they attempt to create phone-tone sounds - Although it's possible to incorporate custom-programmed external routines into HyperCard, I can find no documentation for doing this - not in HyperCard, not in the HyperCard manual, and not in Danny Goodman's massive book. - The HyperCard manual refers to an apparently non-existent "HyperCard Script Language Guide." Ric Ford ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: RE: HyperCard notes (Re: Msg 21873) Date: 16-AUG 13:47 Bugs & Features The next thing I notice about HyperCard is its storage utilization. I created a HyperCard folder and dumped the application and the sample documents I had into it... 3 megabytes! Even though it's efficient in its space usage, having all the neat documents that are available is going to require hard disk megabytes galore. Looks like it'll be hard to have fun with HyperCard if you don't have a hard disk, and it may be terrible if you don't have at least two 800K floppy drives or a massive RAM disk. Ric ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard notes (Re: Msg 21873) Date: 16-AUG 17:01 Bugs & Features Here's how you do custom programming: You write code resources and install them into your stack with resource type XCMD or XFCN (I have not determined exactly what the difference is, though I assume it has to do with returning a value or not). The name of the resource is used to figure out which code resource to invoke when you use them in a script. (Take a look at the scripts in the Documents stack to see how this works.) When the routine gets control, it is called with a structure as its only argument. This structure gets passed as the first argument of calls to lower level routines, in particular to routines which make call-backs into the HyperCard code. The structure layout looks something like this: typedef struct { short xc_nargs; /* number of args?? */ long xc_arg[8]; /* arguments from hypercard to you */ long xc_unknown[8]; /* the count of 8 is my guess */ long xc_result; /* return result to hypercard */ short hc_unknown; /* dunno what this is */ ProcPtr hc_entry; /* entry point to HyperCard service rtne */ long hc_selector; /* selector code for function HC to do */ long hc_args[8]; /* arguments to HC function */ long hc_result; /* returned by HC function */ /* who knows what appears after this ... */ } hc_interface; All this was determined by using MacNosy on the code in SoundCapMover and the Documents stacks. I have a few of the HC selector codes, but it is far from a complete list, and I haven't tried to document the calling sequences yet. I will know more soon. I figure that since I can't get the stuff from APDA until later in the month, I may have it all figured out by then. :-) peter ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: RE: HyperCard notes (Re: Msg 21881) Date: 16-AUG 19:08 Bugs & Features Good job poking around! All I found was the XCMD resource along with a *MAP resource. Any idea what that is? I'm pretty sure XCMD is "external command" and XFCN is "external function." This maps into the manual's terms "function" and "command" and, as you say, the difference is whether a value is returned or not. What does APDA have coming for HyperCard? Ric ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard notes (Re: Msg 21884) Date: 16-AUG 19:57 Bugs & Features *MAP is mostly likely the same *MAP that Servant uses. That's how Servant makes the interior of a resource file behave like a folder on the desktop. APDA supposedly will have some developer materials available around August 25, according to a sign they had posted at the booth. peter ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: RE: HyperCard notes (Re: Msg 21892) Date: 17-AUG 00:19 Bugs & Features Could you explain a little more about *MAP?? Ric ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard notes (Re: Msg 21897) Date: 17-AUG 01:39 Bugs & Features It's a resource that Andy puts into any file that you open up with Servant. It keeps track of where the resource windows are on the screen and whether you have put any resources out on the desktop, such as DAs or sounds (you can double click on them to bring up the DA or emit the sound). Also, in Servant, DA windows stay put wherever you last positioned them, instead of coming up in standard places all the time. I have not examined the *MAP to see what's recorded in it. peter ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: SE video problems due to fan? Date: 16-AUG 16:48 Bugs & Features The jitter in Mac SE screens, which is generally worse on the left side, may be caused by magnetic interference from the cooling fan. See "MacTutor" Aug. '87, p. 84. The speed of the fan can be manipulated by holding your hand over the outlet vent; if the jitter changes with the speed, it's a good proof of the hypothesis. Ric ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: 4D random notes Date: 16-AUG 16:55 Business Mac Here are a few random notes on the 4th Dimension database generator, triggered by a meeting last week in Boston: When you create a layout procedure in flowchart form, there's apparently no way to get it into listing form, or create a new listing form procedure for that layout, without deleting the layout. The same is true if you create a listing procedure and want to change to a flowchart form. You do *not* want to try to control a lot of stuff from a layout procedure. The layout procedures work best as sort of "slaves" to controlling global procedures. The crux of the problem is that you can't fool around with any command that changes the current selection in the current file, in a layout procedure. (The result, to put it politely, is "undefined.") The runtime version of 4D is about 360K in size. There is currently no way to create a completely compiled runtime application... the protection against having your runtime application listed and/or modified is to use passwords or embed code into external routines (not fun). Additional examples are on their way, along with additional tech notes. Support is "ramping up." Ric ------------------------------ From: BIGCHEESE Subject: Bust Out Racket Date: 18-AUG 19:37 Hardware & Peripherals You may have seen ads for COMPUSYSTEMS CO. advertising PC stuff at unbelievable low prices. This week's INFO WORLD has an article saying they are a fraud. A Bust-Out operation is one where they advertise merchandise at low prices, collect a lot of money, and then they "bust out" (meaning they close up shop and quickly disappear.) Several reputable publications were taken in including Byte, Info-World, and Compuserve's magazine! No one got any merchandise and since they sent checks or money orders, there is virtually no chance they will see any of their money back. You should only order from someone who takes credit cards so you can write the credit card company (within 60 days of billing) and get your money refunded. ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: HyperCard PC ?!? Date: 19-AUG 09:03 Business Mac Here is a summary of an article I found in the current issue of PC Week... OWL TO BUILD PC VERSION OF MACINTOSH-BASED HYPERCARD PC Week - 18 August 1987 BOSTON-A PC version of Apple Computer Computer's HyperCard could be demonstrated as early as next month, according to officials of the company developing the new PC program, Owl International of Bellevue, Wash. Owl's PC version of HyerCard will be based on one of its existing products - Guide, a text-retrieval program - which runs under MS Windows 2.0 said Allan Boyd, Owl's president. Mr. Boyd promised that by the end of the year, his company will deliver a PS/2 version of HyperCard which will be able to exchange data files with Apple Computer's HyperCard Macintosh program. A separate version of the program containing additional features is planned for the OS/2, he said. Pricing for the HyperCard work-alike has not yet been determined, company officials said. Hmmm... ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: RE: HyperCard PC ?!? (Re: Msg 21926) Date: 19-AUG 09:10 Business Mac Let's talk about hardware requirements in the PC world. Heck, PC's can't even *address* enough memory to support Atkinson's tight code! Ric ------------------------------ From: RICKLEPAGE Subject: RE: HyperCard PC ?!? (Re: Msg 21927) Date: 19-AUG 10:47 Business Mac yeah, but the new PCs will be able to do that sh*t... rick (who wouldn't want you to be too big of a booster!) :-) ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: Xpressly UnCopyProtected. Date: 19-AUG 10:19 Business Mac Hey, guess what... Quark is now sending _ALL_ registered users a non-copy protected version of Xpress. Free! Wow. So another copy protected company gives in. Right on. Rumor has it from a reliable source is that they did this because they lost a Mouse in the mac user rating. Joshua ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: HyperCard radio buttons Date: 19-AUG 13:59 Programming I was experimenting with simulating a dialog box that had a lot of radio buttons, using HyperCard, and discovered a few interesting things. One is that the round rectangle buttons have a slight drop shadow which makes them not match exactly the buttons of a dialog. This only seems to be a problem if you are outlining the OK button, since you can't get the HyperCard button to sit nicely inside the outline. The other thing I figured out how to do was to implement a group of radio buttons. I began by putting a script in each button of the group that said something like: on mouseUp global current_button set hilite of card button current_button to false put 7 into current_button -- (this is different number for each one) set hilite of card button current_button to true end mouseUp After getting this working, I decided to figure out how to optimize the code to get rid of all the verbiage in the eighteen radio buttons. So what I did was change them to say: on mouseUp setRB(7) end mouseUp and then define in the card script a message handler saying: on setRB global current_button set hilite of card button current_button to false put param(1) into current_button set hilite of card button current_button to true end setRB So far, debugging in HyperCard has been pretty painless. My worst gripe seems to be that I am forever forgetting to say 'into' and 'in' is not an acceptable abbreviation for that syntax. Guess I'll get used to that in time. Say, anyone want to do a interactive spelling checker for HyperCard? :-) peter ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21931) Date: 21-AUG 01:29 Programming Yah, that difference between HyperCard buttons and normal ones bothered me, too; didn't realize it messed up the outline. I'd taken to using shadow buttons because they look better. And here's a question: should buttons auto-highlight? I sort of think they should, to be like dialog buttons. It works well with icon buttons, but transparent ones tend not to highlight very aesthetically. Any debugging tricks? I've used put to write debugging messages. ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21960) Date: 21-AUG 02:40 Programming Ok, now I have a more complicated setup. I have a card with 5 groups of radio buttons, which I want to have work in the usual way. So in the script of each button, I put setRB g,b where g is the group number 1 to 5 and b is the button number on the card. I keep the current value of each button in card field 3, which is hidden but which (for debugging) I have left on the screen where I can see it. (Note in the previous example I said setRB(b) but it turns out that the ( ) are expression delimiters and not argument delimiters!! You get a syntax error if you try to say "setRB(g,b)" because it is looking for a right paren before the comma. The card script says on setRB put param(1) into rbg -- radio button group put line rbg of card field 3 into cb -- current selected button if cb <> param(2) then -- pressing a different button set hilite of card button cb to false -- shut off the old button set hilite of card button param(2) to true -- turn on new one put param(2) into line rbg of card field 3 -- remember selected button end if end setRB After getting it working I type the command hide card field 3 and forget about it. peter ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21967) Date: 21-AUG 11:56 Programming And, is there anyway to create odd sized buttons for odd sized graphics? ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21970) Date: 21-AUG 13:34 Programming What do you mean? Do you want a huge radio button or something? peter ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21974) Date: 21-AUG 16:13 Programming No, I don't want a radio button but say for example I had a map of america and I wanted you to be able to click _anywhere_ within each state for info. This doesn't seem possible with its standard sized buttons. Josh ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21976) Date: 21-AUG 18:50 Programming Yeah, I haven't figured out how to do that either. You need a way to match the mouse click against regions, which HyperCard has no built-in support for. My other big gripe besides DA hostility, it turns out, is that fact that you can't paste a PICT onto a card. I know it is not as efficient as the fancy 4-level graphics that Bill has, but even a transparent PICT would be great. I haven't come up with any scheme for faking it in an external command either (you need to be able to handle update events ...). peter ------------------------------ From: MACWEEKBOS Subject: RE: HyperCard radio buttons (Re: Msg 21979) Date: 21-AUG 21:43 Programming Do you mean you can't paste a PICT into a *field* (no picture fields?) or you can't paste a picture onto a card? Ric ------------------------------ From: RANDOM Subject: RE: Object-oriented C (Re: Msg 1955) Date: 20-AUG 21:47 Tools for Developers As for the pointer vs. handle problem, I recall that this has been addressed, but I don't remember the exact details...I think they added some new keywords to make it possible to allocate Object Pascal style objects as well as C++ (pointer) style objects. - Dennis D. ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: Object-oriented C (Re: Msg 1982) Date: 21-AUG 01:26 Tools for Developers Yes, I found out (by asking Harvey Alcabes last week) that the way it works is that there are two kinds of generic objects: pointer-based objects and Handle- based objects, and so all you have to do is declare your own objects as subclasses of the Handle-based object and everything works. This is how MacApp in C++ will do its objects for compatibility with Object Pascal. peter ------------------------------ From: JHODGSON Subject: New Lightspeed Pascal Date: 20-AUG 22:59 Tools for Developers Let me clear up a rumor that seems to have been circulating lately. Whatever you may have heard THESE are the facts: Next week THINK Technologies, Inc. will release a new version of its Lightspeed Pascal development environment. This new version will be numbered 1.1 The upgrade will address three areas: 1. Mac II compatibility. In version 1.1 the entire environment (compiler, debugger, etc.) will be compatible with the 256k ROMs, 68020 processor and System 4.1. LSP 1.1 will generate 68000 (sixty-eight thousand) code. 2. Version 1.1 will include support for Inside Mac volume 5 routines as supported by MPW 2.0 beta. 3. Included will be a .O converter for including MPW object files in LSP projects. This new version will be in the form of a "patcher" program that can be applied to copies of LSP 1.0. It will also consist of new libraries and the .O converter. It will be posted for distribution through online services like Compuserve, Delphi and other commercial and private services. It will also be available directly from THINK for $10 (to cover shipping and handling and stuff) (call THINK customer support). Owners of copies of LSP that are under warranty will can receive the upgrade at no charge (i.e. there's no reason to delay buying LSP now and upgrading later, quite frankly, version 1.1 probably won't be in the stores for over a month, so buy 1.0 now and download the upgrade). If anyone has any questions about this upgrade or any THINK product you can call me during the day at 617-275-4800. Jack Hodgson Product Manager ------------------------------ From: LOGICHACK Subject: Capps' Date: 20-AUG 00:37 Programming Ptr, Since you bought the C version of Capps', can you tell me a little more about it? Does it seem well written? Do the data structures reasonable? How big are the sample programs that come with it (both source & object size)? What kind of licensing requirements, if any, are involved? You info would be mucho appreciated. Paul :) ------------------------------ From: MER Subject: RE: Capps' (Re: Msg 21941) Date: 20-AUG 18:53 Programming I'll let Peter answer the rest of the questions, since I'm prejudiced (having been heavily involved in the product) but I'll answer one question: there's no licensing requirements. I think the usual copyright stuff applies (that is, you must enforce our copyright if someone steals the code, or something like that, not the old license agreement where you had to put THINK in your about box). ------------------------------ From: LOGICHACK Subject: RE: Capps' (Re: Msg 21949) Date: 21-AUG 01:15 Programming The new licensing (if true) requirements sound great. If you don't mind my asking, in what capacity were you involved with the Capps'? The reason I ask is that if I do use it, I will no doubt have questions. It would be great to have someone online for help. Also, are you a Pascal or C (or both) person? And, how much code does Capps' take up in the resulting application. One more question, any hope of ever using this with MPW? Thanx, Paul :) ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: Capps' (Re: Msg 21941) Date: 21-AUG 01:35 Programming Well, PEdit, an editor built with the PE package and the grep/file search routines, produces an application about 65K big (not much larger than MDS Edit). The DA version (which has fewer features) is about 21K. The source code is about 130K with 10K resources. The DA source is about 42K, with about 3K of resources. The manual describing PE is done in exactly the same style as the Inside Mac chapter on TE. Too bad Inside Mac doesn't come in 3-ring binder format any more :-) The PERec is a bit larger than a TERec, but only the way you'd expect it to be. peter ------------------------------ From: MADMACS Subject: RE: Capps' (Re: Msg 21961) Date: 21-AUG 19:54 Programming Actually, the Addison-Wesley people said that Inside Mac was going to return to the three-ring binder format. One of the reasons for it was that there is a lot of information in IM 1-3 that is now outdated in IM 4 & 5. Robert Hammen Madison Macintosh Users Group ------------------------------ From: OSKINTOUCH Subject: HyperCard Data Import Date: 20-AUG 08:34 Programming Does anyone know how one would go about importing or exporting DATA to/from a HyperCard stack. The manual only describes import/export of Paint docs but says nothing about data.... Mebee you just can't do it....I haven't found any HyperTalk commands that would handle this either...at least not in a straightforeward manner. Thanks, Jonathan ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard Data Import (Re: Msg 21945) Date: 20-AUG 12:06 Programming You can read and write text files. It's not clear whether you can read and write arbitrary 8-bit bytes (the manual doesn't say you can't, but it doesn't mention it explicitly), but it is clear that you can only access the data fork of the file, not the resource fork. For exporting and importing from most databases this should not be a problem, since they usually can also read and write text files. While there isn't an automatic command for dealing with tab-delimited text, it shouldn't be hard to program it. The read command allows you to input either a fixed number of bytes or bytes up to a given delimiter character such as TAB, comma, or RETURN. peter ------------------------------ From: OSKINTOUCH Subject: RE: HyperCard Data Import (Re: Msg 21947) Date: 21-AUG 08:14 Programming Thanks for the info. I didn't think to search for Read/Write in the help stack...I was lookin' at import etc.. The manual doesn't seem to cover this too well and I don't have Goodman's book yet. Do you (or anyone else) feel constrained by the reporting capabilities in HyperCard? From what I can see you can 1. print cards, 2. print columnar reports, or 3. print labels......what about some more flexible alternatives? ( you can probably get around these limitations with some pieces of HyperTalk code but I haven't investigated this thoroughly yet. Thanks again, Jonathan ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: HyperCard Data Import (Re: Msg 21968) Date: 21-AUG 13:26 Programming I won't have an opinion about that for a while yet, since I'm more interested in using HyperCard as a free form database than a structured one. I think you could do something with an external command that would maybe use a card as a template for printing, but it would probably have to call the print manager itself and I don't know how it would handle bitmaps. peter ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: Quark Quirk. Date: 20-AUG 16:30 Business Mac Ah, a great 'feature' of XPress... You know that great little command key character, that's right, the chicago font one that can be generate by a control-q on the SE and II keyboards. Well XPress doesn't like it, not at all. When getting a document that has one of these characters Xpress just stops, not even bothering to skip over that illegal character. They told me that I could modify the font in resedit and put it somewhere else. Would this moving of the character work since it is chicago and has no laserwriter specific fiont? thanks joshua ------------------------------ End of Delphi Mac Digest ************************ -------