Anybody remember Sphere Project? WildFire? Whatever happened to those
guys?

A long time ago we started working on a HyperCard clone (initially so
we could run our IDE on other platforms, but now the IDE is built in to
our clone). This is now known as Project 11, or PXI (something to do
with being approximately the 11th serious attempt to clone HyperCard,
having 11 chunk types, or supporting approximately 11 languages,
something like that).

We managed to get pretty far in RealBasic - as far as being able to
import HyperCard stacks and display them! I even managed to figure out
the format of HyperCard's card graphics. At this very moment, you can
import a HyperCard stack and *every* *single* *little* *thing* about it
will be preserved in PXI's project format. Report templates, AddColor
color, card graphics, XCMDs, icons, cursors, resources, *everything*.
The only thing that gets left behind is the hintbits (and a couple of
printing preferences, but that's all). And as far as I can tell, our
graphics importer is better (or should that be 'more accurate'?) than
MetaCard's. :)

Since we're currently rewriting everything we have in C++, we probably
won't have something to actually demonstrate for a while. So I have
here, the last compilation of our code in RealBasic:

http://www.creysoft.com/PXILite.sit

This application will show you how far we managed to get. It can do a
couple of neat things:

* Open a HyperCard stack and convert it to PXI format. (Converting a
HyperCard stack will take quite a while, especially if it has a lot of
graphics, but once it is converted the resulting project file can be
opened instantly.)

* Create new, totally empty PXI project files.

* Create new objects, delete existing objects, and change properties of
objects in PXI project files.

* Display stacks, including background and card art, buttons, fields,
hilites, shared text, and icons (now in color!). Move through the cards
using the arrow keys or the Go menu. (Note: Opening a completely blank
stack, created from the New Item command, will currently make this
application crash; it's not a very big deal since you couldn't edit it
anyway.)

* Edit the scripts of objects in stacks by Command-Option-clicking them!

* Inspect the properties and items of report templates (by opening
one), stacks, backgrounds, and cards (by holding down Option while
opening one). (Again, if it's a completely empty project item, it will
crash. Beware!)

* Edit SphereTalk scripts (kind of outdated feature, though). Empty
SphereTalk scripts can be edited, too. :)

* Change the project's Page Setup info (either created anew or
preserved from a HyperCard stack!).

Tyler Vano adds this note about this application:

Just a note for those of you who try this - sometimes very large stacks
will cause the application to crash ("Nil Object Exception"). You can
probably still open the resultant .pxi file, and browse it at least in
part. Also note that sometimes the arrows don't quite work, but you can
still use the "Go" menu, or the key equivalents.

WE'RE LOOKING FOR ANY C++ PROGRAMMERS WHO WANT IN ON THIS! If there are
any C++ programmers out there who would like to help us rewrite all our
stuff in C++, contact Tyler Vano ( creysoft@... ). He's the PR
guy; I'm the project leader guy; we're both the lead programmers. :)

Hasta la pasta,
Jonathyn Bet'nct

--
Web site: http://kreativekorp.cjb.net
AIM: tamchel215718
Yahoo: jonrelay
MSN: jonnie1717
ICQ: 76731065 Why would I need an icy cucumber?

My cornflakes are cardboard, they taste like a sweater...