This looks exciting. So many of us have been looking forward to a portable thing that feels like HyperCard. Can’t wait to get to my office and try this.
We really need a "GUI First" toolkit. Something where you can design different windows with drag and drop, and quickly/easily attach scripts to each event. IMO VB6 actually did a really great job in that department, but Microsoft decided to throw the sink at it rather than fixing the issues.
With VB6 you could design a simple form in seconds, or if you needed Windows API access you could also do so quite easily. I wasn't a fan of the language itself, but what you could build in a hurry? That is unmatched by anything today. You could literally build a tool to query any database with a Windows ODBC driver in under an hour.
I miss VB. My most productive programming environment ever. But VB did Windows Desktop applications only, which was fine at the time. The huge problem now is catering to 3 operating systems plus web. I'm not sure we're ever going to overcome that.
That's the reason I'm using Lazarus, even if I prefer programming in C++ rather than Pascal... it's basically like VB6, you can design a form, associate code to events and make an application is seconds. It also has database support, it is multi-platform, and generates native code. It's too bad that such a tool doesn't exist for C++! (There's Qt of course but I find that you can't make things SO quickly with Qt Creator)
C# in Visual Studio is probably closest to this. You get a visual editor + the .NET library is quite huge. Alternatively Lazarus (or Delphi, but I don't know what the licensing situations is right now).
Seems fun... I'm curious, why not use something like Pixijs which has mostly solved performance/graphics issues related to textfields, display chain rendering and propagating mouse events / choosing whether or not to occlude shapes under others? Or would using a canvas/webgl library take the DIY fun out of it?
My primary goal for CardStock has been to keep this really easy for people without a programming background to get into. But it turns out it's also pretty fun and useful as a fast prototyping tool for experienced devs. :)
And, for the record, if you haven't given Decker a spin in 6 months there have been many refinements and new features, not the least of which being a facility for user-defined widgets.
Huge HyperCard fan here, this is a very happy discovery indeed! It captures the spirit of HyperCard -- stacks, images/sounds, etc. -- but the icing on the cake is that Python replaces HyperTalk and the entire Python ecosystem is at your disposal. That's incredible. I'm salivating.
The built-in Reference Guide is fantastic, too. Will definitely be keeping an eye on this project.
Let's not forget that runtime revolution, now called Livecode (https://livecode.com/) still exists and is likely the functional, modern successor to HyperCard. Hypercard Stacks as far as I remember work out of the box too.
Historically there was HyperCard, then cross-platform Metacard, which eventually became Runtime Revolution, which apparently is now renamed Livecode!
Don't have any skin in it, just sharing as it seems to answer the wants/needs of many of the comments here.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 44.1 ms ] threadThis looks exciting. So many of us have been looking forward to a portable thing that feels like HyperCard. Can’t wait to get to my office and try this.
Ben
With VB6 you could design a simple form in seconds, or if you needed Windows API access you could also do so quite easily. I wasn't a fan of the language itself, but what you could build in a hurry? That is unmatched by anything today. You could literally build a tool to query any database with a Windows ODBC driver in under an hour.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377964
The built-in Reference Guide is fantastic, too. Will definitely be keeping an eye on this project.
I feel very seen. FYI, I'm working on a web-based version of the CardStock design tool, and am looking for beta testers.
Ben
Historically there was HyperCard, then cross-platform Metacard, which eventually became Runtime Revolution, which apparently is now renamed Livecode!
Don't have any skin in it, just sharing as it seems to answer the wants/needs of many of the comments here.