Thanks for the welcome wagon, Stephen. Even though I do have a number
of HC stacks to convert, with the realization of the problems, I've
just about come to the conclusion, that the easiest way may be to
create the Rev stacks from scratch and merely copy and paste the HC
scripts in the appropriate places in the Rev stack and tweaking them
as needed. One of the major problems I see is the "background"
situation which is so much different than with HC. It requires a
major change in "mind-set".
I have hundreds of XCMDs and XFCNs that I created using CompileIt
that enabled me to number crunch very fast, even with an SE30, in HC.
I haven't come to a conclusion as to whether these Externals can be
put into a Library and called directly from Rev Stacks or not. Lots
to read. At least I'm doing it on a Mac.
I have a major graphics application that I hope to implement using
Rev. It'll be done from scratch. I looked at Valentina some time
back. With the amount of memory and speed we have these days, I'm
inclined to think that we can probably load our data into memory,
keep it there and use it, instead of even using a database. We'll see.
Joe Wilkins
On Dec 27, 2006, at 2:04 PM, Stephen Barncard wrote:
Joe, welcome to the list. I didn't get serious with Rev until 2003.
I've been around xTalks since I built many stacks for <http://
barncard.com/amstudios/htdoc/Pages/TC.html>A&M Records in 1986-1998
and was on the MacMarines and Evangelist lists.
I too came to Rev seeking immediate conversion of many HC stacks.
My first hurdle was that I was using a lot of XCMDs and XFCNs.
Since rev has almost everything you need natively, a lot of these
can be 'patched' by defining the HC functions in syntax in a stack
script (or library) that is always available.
Even common functions that were in HC have different syntax, like
replace()
FUNCTION replace2
stringToReplace,ReplacementString,textBlockToReplaceIn
replace stringToReplace with ReplacementString in
textBlockToReplaceIn
return textBlockToReplaceIn
END replace2
The error messages could keep you busy on a freshly imported stack.
Sometimes it's easier in the long run to export the data while
still in Hypercard land... and recreate on the rev end, or better
yet, use a real database like Valentina or MySQL.
One tends to end up starting from scratch redesigning newer and
better ways to do the task in Rev vs HC, because the feature set is
so rich. Only the simplest of stacks (1 background, x cds) can be
imported into rev directly, but by re-thinking the data and using
the really good controls included, you could find yourself building
things even more quickly than HC.
One example. I often used to have to use over 100 xcmds in a stack
to make it do things I wanted it to do. A pair of them was created
by the great Rinaldi, and were called TextRes() and ResText(). All
they did was to save text data as a resource file inside the stack,
and retrieve it.
tada! In Rev one can have custom properties... and add TextRes()
and ResText() handlers to take their place and eventually replace
them after stuff gets working..
and laying out of the elements is a lot more fun....and real color!!
anyway, Hang in there! We on this list have figured it takes about
a couple of weeks working with a project where it all starts to
make sense - the proverbial AHA moment - followed by moments of
complete bafflement, after which one gives in and asks on this list
what the hell is going on. You'll get your answer in about 4
flavors in about an hour. And eventually it will become second nature.
It was easy for me to say at first "ah this will be easy because
I'm an Hypertalk power user" and then get down to actually learning
the exceptions and new commands. But it's quick and fun and
beautiful (at least on a Mac!!) and the cross platform thing is a
bonus.
I'm sure others would have some tips for converting stacks.
sqb
I've only been exploring Rev for a week or so, and have already
unearthed a number of significant differences. To be expected, but
somewhat discouraging at times. So much alike and yet so
different. Patience is the keyword! Thanks for the reference to
the tutorial. There are obviously tons of things that have been
written. Frankly, I don't want my articles to be TOO "Rev
polished" in the beginning. I want to stumble around much as
others might do, discovering as many Revolution pitfalls and
idiosyncrasies as possible. Since I have hundreds of HC stacks,
one of my initial challenges will be the conversion of some of the
more interesting ones to Rev. It's not as if I'm going to be
cutting through a lot of brand new turf, so much as doing my own
stumbling; much as I did in the early years with HC. Incidentally,
I'm a practicing Architect, so some of these HC stacks are fairly
mathematically intense. Seems like everyone "practices" something
these days. Don't we have any experts these days? (smile)
Thanks JLG,
Joe Wilkins
--
stephen barncard
s a n f r a n c i s c o
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