Sorry, but I thought the Starter Kit was a "Starter Kit" and that developers
'purchased' the license key to allow them to develop fully functional
applications for distribution.
I thought the "Starter Kit" was a way of allowing users to 'sample' the
development environment before parting with their cash.
>"When distributing Metacard stacks to people who do not have the engine..."?
...then build a standalone with your fully licenced version of Metacard !!!
> This is great, and a technique of general use to the Metacard community
..but perhaps not the Metcard Corp who rely on revenue to continue to
develop OUR environment and protect OUR commercial future...
I know that Supercard have used a (freely downloadable) SuperCard player
which allows end users to execute (not runtime prepared) Supercard Stacks.
And look at the mess they've are/have been/will be (?) in
Mmmmmm ! There's a lot (more) to think about here. I'll be back...
Regards
Gary Rathbone
on 26/9/00 12:44, David Bovill at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Looking at Sivakatirswami web site (well done!), gave me an idea that I was
> wandering if it had more general support...
>
> When distributing Metacard stacks to people who do not have the engine, it
> is common practice to include ftp links to the relevant compiled standalone,
> or the Metacard ftp site for the relevant "Starter Kit"...
>
> The technique that Sivakatirswami has used for Standalone distribution is
> the best technique for distributing MC content. It is similar to the
> standard practice for cross platform (PC?Mac only of course) development
> with Director - where you supply two minimal engines one PC and one Mac that
> both point to a shared named "home" document.
>
> The advantage of the MC/Sivakatirswami technique is that not only can the
> engine be very small (less than a 1MB), but that additional resources can be
> downloaded by the engine itself whenever required (and indeed in the
> background while reading what you have downloaded)...
>
> This is great, and a technique of general use to the Metacard community. My
> suggestion is that this is improved and made much simpler for the developer
> (ie us), by adapting the Metacard Starter Kit, and it's FTP site to utilise
> this "progressive download" technique...
>
> To be specific I suggest that:
>
> 1) the Starter Kit be broken down to appropriately compressed minimal
> engines for each platform, with "progressive download and save" options for
> all the relevant documentation and tutorials.
>
> 2) The Metacard site contains a page for cutting and pasting appropriate
> cross platform HTML code for use in a developers site.
>
> 3) A Javascript version is created for auto-platform detection with
> default code for all platforms for non-Javascript browsers
>
> 4) Appropriate html code is available for inclusion in emails, so that
> the recipient can easily follow the html links in the body of the email
> message to download the minimal engine.
>
> To give an example of how this would help, it would mean that all we would
> have to do to send someone an example stack is copy the relevant cross
> platform html code and include it in the email message alongside either the
> attached stack of another ftp link to where you have posted your specific
> stack.
>
> This would save everyone having to download all the engines for all the
> platforms, for simple quick distributions. The cross platform browser
> detection code would also be a useful community resource.
>
> Lessons from History...
> Macromind Director's Shockwave and Xtra plugin architecture only really
> started to take off when they improved there download site to make it
> eas(ier) for people download the Xtra and/or plugins for those people that
> did not already have them pre-installed.
>
>
> As I have to do this in any case, I am offering my services to try and crack
> this one. If anyone likes the idea and could help in any way please let me
> know what you think/what you could help with. Bullet proof cross platform
> browser detection scripts anyone?
>
>
>
>
>> From: Sivakatirswami <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 19:11:37 -1000
>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Subject: Metacard Site Went Public
>>
>> We went public tonite with our new Metacard site. You can see the
>> announcement advertising "Mystic Mouse" on our daily web page. (and a
>> picture of yours truly with our one of our books in Russian.
>>
>> http://www.gurudeva.org/today
>>
>> The site itself is at
>>
>> http://www.himalayanacademy.com/studyhall/
>>
>> I really want to thank everyone for their support and help along the way.
>> Can't believe how easy it was with MC and what a nightmare it would have
>> been had we gone with a HTML/JAVA based platform.
>>
>> We still have a long ways to go. And it will be interesting to see if we can
>> do a "paradigm" shift away from the misconception that
>>
>> web = netscape and or IE.
>>
>> Scott: I built the PPC with the latest build of 2.3.2b2.1 Let me know a
>> month from how if you have any referrals from our domain form our MC
>> advocacy page.
>>
>> Aloha from Hawaii.
>>
>>
>> Hinduism Today
>>
>> Sivakatirswami
>> Editor's Assistant/Production Manager
>> www.HinduismToday.com
>> www.HimalayanAcademy.com
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>
>> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/
>> Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
>> Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
>
>
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>
>
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