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From: beard@ux1.lbl.gov (Patrick C Beard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Dynamic Cards?
Message-ID: <1057@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Date: 4 Oct 88 17:34:19 GMT
References: <4.2348DA08@mailcom.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@helios.ee.lbl.gov
Reply-To: beard@ux1.lbl.gov (Patrick C Beard)
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley
Lines: 56

In article <4.2348DA08@mailcom.UUCP> postmaster@mailcom.UUCP (Bernard Aboba) writes:
>
>I've been asked to write a HyperCard stack which would analyze an 
>atmospheric pollution problem.  It's going to use a large xcmd written in 
>MPW fortran, run a numerical simulation, and then draw contour maps of 
>the output for display in HyperCard.  What I need to do is to be able to 
>create COLOR cards with the contour maps drawn on them, so as to create 
>an animation.
>I have several questions:  Firstly, can one write XCMD's in MPW Fortran? 

I don't know about this.  But I would assume so since the Language Systems
fortran is supposed to produce the exact same object as MPW Pascal.

>I know that MPW C is a problem, but I have no idea whether MPW Fortran 
>from Language Systems messes with register A5 or not.
>Next, can one create a card dynamically and paint on the foreground 
>easily?  In the background would be a map of the area or something.  

Yes, one can send a message from an XCMD to create a new card, you can
then place whatever bitmap (black & white only) you want on the card by
copybits'ing it to the desired rectangle while creating a picture,
putting the picture on the clipboard, and telling hypercard to paste it
on to the card.

>I also need to do the contour maps in COLOR.  I have the COLOR X-CMD, but 
>that doesn't look too helpful here.

Now, hypercard doesn't know anything about color.  Maybe the new version
will, so if you were to create a format 2 PICT above (with color), it would
paste it in black & white.  The only solution is to have the XCMD create
a color GrafPort and draw the map itself and maintain control for updates
etc.  I suppose the XCMD could call Hypercard's on idle handler?

>.
>Am I trying to do something impossible?  The most irritating thing of all 
>is that this is a piece of cake on the IBM PC, using software like 
>Graphics FX, PC Storyboard, Graphix Designer, etc.  I'd appreciate any 
>suggestions to help save my Mac Honor.
>
>

It seems to me that doing it in hypercard is going to be more difficult than
just writing a small application to do it.  Also, one suggestion I have is
that the XCMD should only be in charge of the display of the results of the
simulation, so write a down and dirty file oriented program to calculate the
simulation.  Write the XCMD in a language more suited for building code 
resources, i.e. C or Pascal (or ASM for that matter) and run the simulation 
in Fortran.

Until Hypercard can fully utilize the Macintosh's resources (color on the
Mac II), I don't think it is very useful for complicated applications.
(Flame on.)

Patrick Beard
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
beard@ux1.lbl.gov