CardStock | Hacker News Reader

CardStock

github.com

101 pointsRodgerTheGreat15 comments

See also Decker from about six months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377964

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.

Thanks matthewn!

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

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.

I hope it sees traction. I still love HyperCard conceptually.

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.

I wish I could shout this from the rooftops—though I fear most people would simply call the police. :- )

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).

Congratulations!

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.

Thanks! Please let me know if you have some good constructive criticism once you try it out. I'm definitely looking for feedback!

Ben

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. :)

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