From: Peter Cameron (pdwc_at_sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Mar 21 2004 - 17:02:40 PST
on 21/03/04 6:10 PM, Vaguely Radio at vradio_at_maine.rr.com wrote:
> - Is Magic Cap fairly Newton-like? If so, how - graphical interface,
> object-oriented data soup structure?
The following is from the Magic Cap programming manual section on data.
It looks pretty much like HyperCard.
Peter
Many package scenes collect their data into units of related information,
with each unit containing roughly one screen of data. Magic Cap provides
cards as a way to organize these units of information that fill most of a
scene¹s screen area. For example, each page in the notebook is a card, as is
each name card in the name card file.
Some scenes contain only a single card, such as the message scene that is
used when creating a new telecard. Scenes that contain multiple cards
usually collect the cards together into a list called a stack of cards, also
called a stack. Scenes that display stacks of cards are stack scenes. For
example, the notebook and the name card file both collect their cards into
stacks and display them using stack scenes.
Often, a group of cards in a stack shares some information or a common basic
appearance. Magic Cap uses forms to represent this shared information or
common appearance. Forms are viewables that contain the information shared
by the group of cards. For example, all name cards in the name card file
share a form, and all index cards in the name card file share a different
form. The notebook uses several forms: one for plain paper, one for lined
paper, one for graph paper, and one for list paper.
Each form includes items shared by all its cards. For example, in the name
card file, the form for name cards includes boxes that contain addresses and
telephone numbers and a viewable object used by group name cards to list
their members. The form for index cards simply provides the visual
background for those cards and contains no shared objects.
Similarly, the notebook forms provide shared objects and background
appearance for notebook pages. The forms for plain paper and for lined paper
include two text fields, one for the title of the page and one for the
page¹s body text. The form for graph paper includes a text field for the
page¹s title and a ruling object that draws the grid on the page. All the
different notebook forms provide the spiral notebook background.
Each form includes a list of form items, the objects that are shared among
all the cards that use the form, such as the two text fields provided by the
plain paper form in the notebook. Although the text fields themselves are
shared, the data that provides the objects¹ content (that is, the text
objects themselves) are not shared each card has different text in these
objects.
To accommodate having different data for shared objects on each card, each
card keeps track of the data that it places into the form items. When the
card becomes current, it installs its own data into the form items. When the
card is no longer current, it removes its data from the form items and
stores the data in its extra data.
For example, when a new plain paper notebook page becomes current, it
installs its title and body text into the text fields provided by the form.
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