From: jonwd@uwtc.washington.edu (Jon Wiederspan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: SuperCard! (Was Re: HyperCard 3.0 info)
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:50:57 GMT
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In article <1993Jan11.233604.3628@netcom.com> Brian Kendig,
bskendig@netcom.com writes:
> *sigh...*  Maybe it's time to give SuperCard a serious look.  How is
> it, compatibility-wise and feature-wise?

I've been using SuperCard for over two years and used HyperCard before
that (since its first release).   I've found SuperCard much more powerful
and useful than HyperCard once I learned how to take advantage of the
differences.  The process of learning to use SuperCard is not as easy,
though, and has turned off several HyperCard users.
1)  SuperCard (SC) has two editing modes; SuperEdit and SuperCard.  In
SuperEdit you *only* edit the projects ("project" is the SC equivalent of
stacks).  SuperCard runs the project and provides you with many tools for
runtime editing.  Most HyperCard users seem to feel that SuperCard
doesn't provide as much editing power as HyperCard (which is true) and
are frustrated with having to switch back to SuperEdit for some changes. 
After using SuperCard for a while, I realized that I was actually
building projects *faster* this way (than I did stacks) because I could
rough out most of it in the editor and then fine tune in the runtime. 
Now I find HyperCard too limiting in terms of editing.
2)  SuperCard has GREAT color capabilities.  Every object has a
foreground and background and line color and pattern.  Thus, a field of
text has a border color and pattern, foreground color and pattern,
background color and pattern, and the text itself has its own color. 
These attributes are all adjustable from within scripts, so there was no
problem when I wanted to make a 'traffic light'; a button that was green
when on and red when off.  SuperCard also lets you import other color
lookup tables (clut) for specialized designs or picts.  Unfortunately,
these color capabilities have cost SuperCard some speed, so I would
recommend at least a IIci and cache card (although I use just a IIsi and
its not so bad -- but I'd love to have the IIci and card!).
3)  SuperCard has a window for handling resources like XCMD, XFCN, snd,
clut, ICON, and others.  No need to use ResEdit to move resources!
4)  SuperCard has the ability to make standalone modules for distribution
and no license fees or royalties!
5)  SuperCard can use almost all HyperCard XCMD/XFCN's.  I've found a few
that don't work well, but typically they aren't too stable in HyperCard
either.  SuperCard also contains a lot of features that are only
available through XCMDs in HyperCard; most notable is the file open/close
features.
6)  I've run SuperCard on System 7.1 with WorldScript II and 32-bit on
and no problems.

There's probably more, but I haven't used HyperCard since 2.0, so many
items I'm not sure if they are unique to SuperCard or not (list fields,
balloon help?).

Jon Wiederspan
Software Consultant
University of Washington
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard