MetaCard

Where do I begin? My interest in MetaCard started as a wish to create a very large publication, which included multimedia. If you've looked around you know that there a lots of apps out there. Maybe like me you even tried some of them and like me have taken hours and hours to learn scripting languages only to finally find out that your project is too big, or the language is just too hard to get a handle on, or it just won't do what you need it to do. Well, I think I've finally found the perfect application for just about any job.

After looking at MetaCard, I soon found that it is so much more powerful than for just my application although it is perfect for multimedia applications including large multimeda applications. And it also perfect for a lot of other types of applications. I'll probably get some argument about this but one of the most powerful attributes of MetaCard is that applications you create using MetaCard are cross platform. That means that you can create an application on the Windows platform with MetaCard and immediately go run it on a Macintosh machine without recompiling. MetaCard supports Macintosh, Windows, and 10 Unix operating systems all of which are listed at the bottom of this page.

You won't see my usual overload of screenshots with MetaCard. The development environment (user interface) is a little different than we Windows users are accustomed to seeing. There really isn't a "user interface" as we know it. There are what are called stacks. Each of the screenshots below represents a stack. You can have many stacks in an application. The stacks in MetaCard are not "enclosed" in a user interface.

Below is the first screen (stack) you see when you open MetaCard. This is called the Home stack. You are seeing it exactly how it looks on my machine at 1024X768 resolution. That's all the bigger it is. From the Home stack you can get to all the tools necessary within MetaCard.

From the Home stack you can open the Menu Bar that gives you access to some of the tools you will use to create your application. Again this is an exact representation of the Menu Bar. The Menu Bar is also a stack.

The Help Directory is also a stack. I bet you're beginning to wonder when I'm going to show you the main user interface. You're looking at it. When working in MetaCard I keep these three stacks open on my desk top. That is where you work, directly on your desktop. It's interesting and a little different but after working for a little bit, I really got used to how easy it is to see everything and have it close at hand when I needed it not to mention that fact that I could move them around if I needed to. Along with these three stacks you will have the application stack you are working on open.

Considering that I am new to MetaCard and that fact that I just love to read documentation, I keep the Help stack close at hand at all times. The help stacks provided with MetaCard are some of the best help files I have seen. They are complete, easy to read and understand, and it's very easy to find what I want when I want it. I don't have to flip through an un-indexed book, or sort through an unorganized Windows type help menu. This isn't the first good help I've seen but it ranks at the top if not in the number one spot as far as I'm concerned. Learning a new application can be hard enough, but it's much worse when you have to learn how to use the help files before you can get help. But, before you even get to the help files, you can start with the tutorials stack and in a very short time have a completed application along with learning a lot of things about MetaCard. It was quick and easy.

Here is what MetaCard looks like on my desktop before I start working. Look at all the available space I have to work in plus having everything right at my fingertips. I really enjoyed the tutorials. They were quick and didn't go over my head with a bunch of things I *had* to have the help menu for. One of the nice things about the MetaCard documentation is that a lot of things are backed up by solid understandable examples. They don't only tell you, they show you.

If you've had any contact at all with any kind of programming language you will see that the MetaCard language is an easy one to learn. If you haven't had any contact with a programming language, you won't learn it overnight, but you will learn it and it shouldn't be hard for you. Here is an example snippet of code used in the help files:

on keyDown whichKey
    if whichKey is not a number
    then beep 1
    else pass keyDown
end keyDown

For me that is basically an easy piece of code to read with the exception that I did need to learn how things work in MetaCard to understand the "pass" command which I learned before I got to that example snippet of code. When someone presses a key down, (keys that are recognized as key downs), and that key is not a number, then I'm going to hear a beep and the if...else statement is going to end. If someone presses a key down that is a number then the key pressed is going to be passed on. In this case the example was checking input for a text box. This is almost like plain English in that it is readable even for someone who is not a programmer for a living. Because the scripting language is close to what we recognize and can understand it makes it much easier to learn the language.

Here is another script example:

on mouseUp
    repeat with count = 10 down to 1 #create a variable named count
    put count && "and counting..." # concatenate count to "and counting..."
    wait 1 second # give user a chance to see new count
    end repeat 
    put "0 Blast off!" 
end mouseUp

This comes from the MetaCard Meta Talk examples and is a perfect example of what I mentioned earlier about not only telling you but showing you. On the stack that this example is in, there is an option to run it. The MetaCard message box opens and runs the code. The # sign represents a comment which means that what is after the # sign on the same line is not code but a program comment. So, you can see the code, see an explanation of what it is and run the snippet to see if you figured out what it does. It's a great tool for learning the MetaCard language.

As listed in the Key Features below, MetaCard doesn't require any external files at run time such as .dlls. This means that you don't have to install any extra files to the end users system folder. I have always been a big fan of that. No files installed to the system folder means quicker machine start up and less resources used up loading those files into memory.

If you are going to build an exceptionally large application MetaCard supports building modules. This means that you can break your application up into smaller chunks to facilitate quicker load times. Breaking applications into modules is a good programming practice in my opinion anyway. It makes it easier to find problems, easier to read, and easier to handle.

Key Features (from the MetaCard site to avoid errors)

• Easy to use yet powerful interactive GUI development environment with an integral interpreted scripting language.
• Support for all button and field styles, pulldown and popup menus, tooltips, tabbed dialogs, and floating palettes.
• Supports Motif, Windows 95, and MacOS look and feel, switchable at runtime.
• Very High Level Language (VHLL) features such as associative arrays, regular expression pattern matching, and message passing support creation of high functionality applications with fewer lines of code.
• Custom (user-defined) properties for all objects with get/set callbacks support object-oriented development.
• Interactive GUI script debugger and profiler shorten development times required to produce high-quality applications.
• Build single-file, standalone, double-click-able applications for all platforms. No installers, external files, DLLs, browsers, or virtual machines are required to deploy MetaCard applications.
• Text editing tools that support multiple typefaces, sizes and colors, subscript and superscript, automatic scrolling, search, sort, and hypertext links. Import and export HTML format text.
• Object (vector) graphics with properties that can be set from the scripting language for dynamic data display.
• Import and play back sounds in .au (mulaw), WAV, and AIFF formats.
• Import and play back movies in QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, and FLC movies on UNIX systems, and in platform-specific formats on Windows and Mac systems.
• Import screen snapshots directly into MetaCard with the snapshot tool, or import images in GIF (including animated transparent GIFs), JPEG, PNG, BMP, XWD, and many other formats. A complete set of full 24 bit color image editing/painting tools support creation and editing of images, icons, cursors, brush shapes, and fill patterns on UNIX systems.
• Card transition visual effects and double-buffered object manipulation and animation are available on all platforms: no special hardware or software is required.
• Object architecture, scripting language, and external procedure call interface are source compatible with Apple Corporation's HyperCard. Import HyperCard 1.2 and 2.X stacks in raw binary, BinHex and MacBinary formats. SuperCard to MetaCard and OMO to MetaCard converters are also available.

One application can be used on any platform.

Applications created on one platform can be run on another without the necessity of recompiling.

The engine runs about 1.5MB on all platforms, with stacks running from 20K to 500K. No special display, networking, or other hardware is required.

Your applications can be deployed royalty free. The Home Stack is the licensed stack so you don't have to worry about paying royalties.

You can follow this link to see what's in store for MetaCard in the future. Some pretty awesome stuff. Check it out. The link will open in a new window.

All in all, if you are building an application of whatever type, you should have MetaCard. It's the easiest I've found to learn and use. The engine is small and runs quickly.

You can get a fully functional copy of MetaCard. The only limitation is the length of scripts you can create with the Starter Kit. Go check it out and see just how easy and powerful it is. You won't find anything this easy to learn, this versatile, and this powerful for the price.

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MetaCard

Macintosh System Requirements
68K or PPC Mac OS 7.1 thru 8.5
16MB Free RAM
4MB Free HD space for installation
800X600 resolution
8, 16, or 24/32 bit color Windows System Requirements
Pentium Processor
Windows 95, 98, NT, (Win3.1 w/Win32's)
4MB Free HD space for installation
800X600 resolution
8, 16, or 24/32 bit color

Estimated Street Price
$995.00 (US) Average Selling Price Single User
Unix/X11
SPARC (SunOS 4.x and Solaris 2.x)
DEC Alpha
SGI IRIS
HP-9000/300 and 700
IBM RS/6000
SCO ODT
Intel SVR4 (UnixWare and Solaris x86)
Linux

Copyright Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved