HyperCard Mailing List

Is there a process for converting old XCMDs to functions in LiveCode? Is it
necessary to have the source code, or is the code easily retrieved from the
external?

Thanks,
Thom

The format for externals in LC is very different (among other things on Mac they use OS X bundles since the resource fork has been deprecated). So converting them would require source.

That said, for all the externals I used to use in HyperCard and SuperCard, I rarely use them in LiveCode since most of the stuff I needed is built in.


What capabilities are you looking for?

I was wondering for converting XCMDs in stacks that use them, like for
playing animations. Are they in a binary format? The conversion would be
XCMD to LiveCode native/scripted function.

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 4:46 PM, Ambassador@[redacted].com[HyperCard] <
HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:

>
>
> The format for externals in LC is very different (among other things on
> Mac they use OS X bundles since the resource fork has been deprecated). So
> converting them would require source.
>
> That said, for all the externals I used to use in HyperCard and SuperCard,
> I rarely use them in LiveCode since most of the stuff I needed is built in.
>
> What capabilities are you looking for?
>
>
>

On 13 Nov 2015, at 02:30, DTS daretospam@[redacted].com[HyperCard] <HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:
> I was wondering for converting XCMDs in stacks that use them, like for playing animations. Are they in a binary format? The conversion would be XCMD to LiveCode native/scripted function.

In short: There is no sensible way to convert an XCMD. XCMDs are for classic MacOS, which is a very different beast from OS X. Even if you had the source code, you'd effectively have to rewrite the XCMD. The exception would be XCMDs that mainly do number crunching or other *very* basic, non-GUI things.

However, most modern HyperCard clones provide a lot of the features one used to use XXCMDs for already natively. So what you could do is put a handler in the mainStack that has the same name the XCMD used to have, looks at the parameters, and then performs the equivalent operations using a regular script.

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
http://stacksmith.org

On 13 Nov 2015, at 02:30, DTS daretospam@[redacted].com[HyperCard] <HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:
> I was wondering for converting XCMDs in stacks that use them, like for playing animations. Are they in a binary format? The conversion would be XCMD to LiveCode native/scripted function.

You mean AddMotion II, or PICS animations, or what?

I don't think there's anything automatic, but if you have a stack that uses AddMotion, I'd be curious if I can figure out the format it stores animations in. That shipped with HyperCard, so there's bound to be lots of stacks out there that use it, so I'd like Stacksmith to somehow be able to make sense of that format.

I managed to figure out how to read AddColor's resources already, but AddMotion's are likely more complex.

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
http://stacksmith.org

On 11/13/2015 12:25 PM, DTS daretospam@[redacted].com[HyperCard] wrote:
> Uli, the particular one I am looking at is a (MacroMind??) Director XCMD
> called playmovie. Like you mentioned, it probably can be converted to a
> handler. But I was wondering if you need the source to make sense of what
> the XCMD is doing since they deal with a proprietary file format where the
> "movie" is stored. Thanks!

I had to deal with that once. The solution was to export the movies out
of Director into another more general format that LiveCode's player
object could work with.

--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque@[redacted].comHyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 10:55 AM, 'J. Landman Gay' jacque@[redacted].com[HyperCard] <HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:
>
> I had to deal with that once. The solution was to export the movies out
> of Director into another more general format that LiveCode's player
> object could work with.
> ,___
>
It's pretty old, did you have to use an old version of Director? What
format would work best to convert to?

On 11/13/2015 2:30 PM, DTS daretospam@[redacted].com[HyperCard] wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 10:55 AM, 'J. Landman Gay' jacque@[redacted].com> [HyperCard] <HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:
>>
>> I had to deal with that once. The solution was to export the movies out
>> of Director into another more general format that LiveCode's player
>> object could work with.
>> ,___
>>
> It's pretty old, did you have to use an old version of Director? What
> format would work best to convert to?
>

I had someone else do it, so I'm not sure what version they used and it
was a few years ago. I can't really remember what format we decided on
either, but LC with QuickTime can play anything QT suports. Now that QT
is deprecated in both Windows and OS X, I think I'd go with mp4 if
possible or one of the older mpeg formats.

--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque@[redacted].comHyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

> Now that Quicktime is deprecated in both Windows and OS X
Oh, how the times have changed !!!I would have never guess this;it was their most-spectacular technology,that demonstrated that they were well-ahead of any contenders ...
From: "'J. Landman Gay' jacque@[redacted].com[HyperCard]" <HyperCard-Mailing-List>
To: HyperCard-Mailing-List
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [HC] Converting XCMDs in LiveCode

  On 11/13/2015 2:30 PM, DTS daretospam@[redacted].com[HyperCard] wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 10:55 AM, 'J. Landman Gay' jacque@[redacted].com> [HyperCard] <HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:
>>
>> I had to deal with that once. The solution was to export the movies out
>> of Director into another more general format that LiveCode's player
>> object could work with.
>> ,___
>>
> It's pretty old, did you have to use an old version of Director? What
> format would work best to convert to?
>

I had someone else do it, so I'm not sure what version they used and it
was a few years ago. I can't really remember what format we decided on
either, but LC with QuickTime can play anything QT suports. Now that QT
is deprecated in both Windows and OS X, I think I'd go with mp4 if
possible or one of the older mpeg formats.

--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque@[redacted].comHyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

codecs for mpeg are terrible tho. not as bad as avi, but Almost.

These are 1 bit pixel animations, so I'm guessing a lossless format would
work best.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 2:57 PM, Eric Engle eric.engle@[redacted].com[HyperCard] <HyperCard-Mailing-List> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> codecs for mpeg are terrible tho. not as bad as avi, but Almost.
>
>