Hypertalk Beginners Guide

( .~ Apple~ HyperTalkTM Beginner's Guide An Introduction to Scripting Previously titled Scripting With HyperTalk ( Confirmation Draft Jody Larson Customer Communications February 21, 1989 Apple Confidential or It APPLE COMPLIER, INC Copyright e 1989 by Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Apple Computer, Inc. Primed in the United States of America. © Apple Computer, Inc., 1989 20525 Mariani Avenue Cupertino, CA 950]4-6299 (408) 996-1010 Apple, the Apple logo, HyperCard, and Macintosh, are registered uademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. HyperTalk is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. ITC Zapf Dingbats is a registered trademark of International Typeface Corporation. Linotronic is a registered trademark of Linotype Co. POSTSCRIPT is a registered trademark, and Illustrator is a trademark, of Adobe Systems Incorpora ted. Varityper is a registered trademark, and VT600 is a trademark, of AM International, Inc. Simultaneously published III the Cniled Slates and Canada • • ( Contents Preface About This Guide vii What you need to know viii How to use this guide viii Conventions used in this guide ix For more information x Chapter 1 ( ( Getting Started 1 Start up HyperCard 2 Set your user level 3 Create a practice stack 4 Set up the background 6 Putting a title on the stack 7 Home, sweet Home 8 Making a button 9 Customizing the button 9 And now, a little scriptmg 11 Trying it out 13 Buttons for traveling 14 Making two new buttons 14 Customizing the button on the right 1S Customizing the button on the left 1S Completing the scripts 16 Fill out the stack 17 Adding a label field 17 Typing a label 18 Adding five new cards 18 A script to label all cards 19 Add a button to the Home card 21 What you've done so far 22 iii ) Chapter 2 Special Effects 25 Some visual effects 26 Adding graphics 27 The Visual command 28 Adding effects to the arrow buttons 28 Adding an effect to the Home button 30 Adding the same effect to the button on the Home card 31 More experiments with visual effects 32 Barn Door 33 Dissolve 34 The syntax of the Visual command 35 Some sound effects 32 The syntax of the Play command 33 Specifying the notes 37 Dealing with long lines 39 \X'hat you've done in this chapter 39 Chapter 3 More About Message, 41 Sending messages 42 Create a "Receiver" button 43 Send a message with the Message box 44 Create a "Sender" button 45 Action at a distance 43 Remove the handler from the button script 48 Move the handler to the card level 48 Move the handler to the background level 49 Change the handler 50 Confirming actions 53 A disappearing act 53 A command to put up an alert box 54 An additional action 56 If structures 51 Syntax summaries 59 Answer 59 Click 60 Hide 61 Send 61 Set 61 Show 62 Wait 62 \X'hat you've …