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Art Bits from HyperCard

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Re: Art Bits from HyperCard

#21
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that I'm critiquing you within your apparent wheelhouse, but this aesthetic also matters a lot to me. img[data-astro-cid-vnzlvqnm] { width: 48px; height: 48px; image-rendering: pixelated; object-fit: contain; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; } I understand the goal here, but it works really poorly IMO when the source images are generally 32x32 (and some of them are smaller to arbitrary degrees because the content has bee…

As I mentioned, images are the hardest to do because beyond the core icons, the available graphics vary massively in size. Displaying them at "actual size" makes them far too small to be usable on a modern screen. I think you're also probably misremembering the scale of the cursor. It's not perfect, but it's not meant to be 16x16. Take a look at https://hcsimulator.com/ The approach I took is the best I could manage…

> Displaying them at "actual size" makes them far too small to be usable on a modern screen

Man, I have ancient (er, well, that's a bit awkward in context!) stuff, I know. But these things are still just fine at ~96dpi IMO.

> I think you're also probably misremembering the scale of the cursor. It's not perfect, but it's not meant to be 16x16.

I recall 16x16 cursors (System 6 CURS resource) and 32x32 icons, so I expect the cursor to be visually 1/2 the height/width of the icons. You have it effectively at 2/3.

> on a Mac retina display

These basically don't exist in my world. But again (or maybe I was unclear?), @media queries can check for dpi and not just viewport size.

Re: Art Bits from HyperCard

#22
I so wish the author had made their screenshot at the top an image map so you could click on the icons to jump to each section below. But so cool!

I loved playing with HyperCard in elementary/middle school before I moved on to coding and saw what was possible there. But HyperCard will always hold a special place in my heart.

EDIT: Ok, I couldn't help myself, this [0] will inject the image map into the page (paste it into your console). Don't worry, it's simple and easy to read what it's doing). Video of what it looks like once injected: https://cs.joshstrange.com/t1T3KGxF

[0] https://gist.github.com/joshstrange/6ea1fb4b64b39ee410e2bd6f...

Re: Art Bits from HyperCard

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this thing called the World Wide Web that does most of that.

The web is sort of like hypercard, but it's not the same; in particular, the ease of creating things in hypercard is the important thing about it, and AFAIK that remains unmatched.

Exactly - the Web is a PDF. Hypercard is a Word document.

Re: Art Bits from HyperCard

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web is sort of like hypercard, but it's not the same; in particular, the ease of creating things in hypercard is the important thing about it, and AFAIK that remains unmatched.

Exactly - the Web is a PDF. Hypercard is a Word document.

As someone who knows rather a lot about HyperCard: it was never allowed or positioned to fulfill its potential. There were easily fixable security issues ruining the opportunity to be the center of OS scripting. The UI was never rewritten for color and to match the Mac UI, which would not have been complicated either. The code must have been very difficult to upgrade, either technically or organizationally, because the entire upgrade run past 2.0 was so meager. It was a piece of genius, but in the end, only a piece.

Re: Art Bits from HyperCard

#29
post #3

We need a modern HyperCard, I want to see more creative computing

A long term goal of mine, but I would create a desktop application as I don’t think there’s enough focus on those any more.

I would love a local-first app, publish to web sure! but local first editor would be fantastic imo

Re: Art Bits from HyperCard

#30

My favorite fact about HyperCard was that the game Myst was built using HyperCard: Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst#:~:text=The%20game%20was%...

Also sources: the Myst making-of video included on the Myst CD-ROM, and the Cyan team members who made it!
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