Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!udel!princeton!phoenix!bskendig
From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Self-Starting Demos
Message-ID: <14145@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 28 Feb 90 17:15:11 GMT
References: <16578@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Reply-To: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Organization: Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom Project
Lines: 38

In article <16578@oregon.uoregon.edu> BOLDUAN@oregon.uoregon.edu (Karen Bolduan) writes:
>I am a graduate architecture student, presently engaged in creating a stack
>that will, I hope, eventually be a self-running demonstration of a newly
>developed energy efficiency design/analysis software package. The stack will
>most likely be packaged with the software as a separate disk. My problem is
>this:
>Is it possible to get this stack to run itself as soon as the disk is inserted
>into the drive? The stack and application will fill the disk, so there isn't
>room for a system. Any ideas?

Yes, it's possible, and there are two ways to do it.

You don't want to use the first way.  It would involve creating a
resource that pulls a mean 'n' nasty trick on the Finder by getting it
to launch HyperCard with your stack, and having that resource
masquerade as something important so that it gets run.  Shades of
WDEF, anyone?

The second way is to either include instructions with the disk, print
instructions on the disk's label, or put instructions on the disk so
that even the most technologically-illiterate user could figure it
out.  Difficult, but possible.

>Also, if anyone sees any possible problems with distributing HyperCard in this
>way, I'd appreciate hearing about them. Thank you!

I think it's a problem.  Having your machine do all sorts of funky
things as soon as you put a disk into it is, at the very least,
non-intuitive.  At the very most, it's dangerous.  Don't try it.
Instead, use my Method #2 above to tell the user how to start the
program on his own.

     << Brian >>
-- 
| Brian S. Kendig      \ Macintosh |   Engineering,   | bskendig             |
| Computer Engineering |\ Thought  |  USS Enterprise  | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU
| Princeton University |_\ Police  | -= NCC-1701-D =- | @PUCC.BITNET         |
|   Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom / General Electric WP3   |