On: MacBASIC

[WillAdams]

As a 128K Mac owner who bought Microsoft's BASIC for the Mac, this still makes me angry.

Then Apple released HyperCard and that was nice, until they dropped it.

Then Runtime Revolution was released, and I found it quite nice to use, then they opensourced it as Livecode and I pledged for that, then they quit supporting the Community Edition and closed the code again (anyone know if anyone is making progress on getting this to compile/work/install?).

These days I just use Python, but I'd really like to see a nice option for GUI development.

[analog31 → WillAdams]

During my time with the Mac, from 1993 to 1997, I did virtually all of my dev on HyperCard. The exception was writing some "code resources" in C to access hardware functions.

Then I switched to Windows and used Visual Basic for too many years.

Today, Python. What's really happened is that I've walked away from the platform wars, and only use tools that run on any modern OS.

I've embraced Tkinter. What I've realized is that my main reason for needing to arrange GUI's by hand was to make efficient use of (by today's standards) tiny displays. My GUI's were never going to be liberating or beautiful because I'm not that good.

Now I can afford for my UI's to be less efficient of screen space, and Tkinter gets things good enough to be usable if expectations are realistic.

[codr7 → analog31]

I've been having the same realization with Java/Swing lately. It's good enough for many of my needs and it runs pretty much anywhere.

[noduerme → WillAdams]

I used to do a lot of Hypercard. Never tried Livecode. Just looking at their site and their pricing model, I'm curious, do you actually have to get their approval / notify them for every app you develop and where it gets released? I can't imagine spending the time to adopt a language that was controlled by one company that way. Learned my lesson with Flash AS3, but at least Adobe didn't care what you made with it or try to put their hand in your revenue stream.

[beagle3 → noduerme]

John Earnest’s “Decker” is basically HyperCard, open source, free, multiple implementation (for web in JS and also native cross platform SDL+C).

The language is not AppleTalk, but one called Lil - nicer, IMHO.

It captures old HyperCard magic and aesthetics. Give it a try.

[WillAdams → beagle3]

Yes, but what if one wants something modern?

I did the 1-bit 512 x 342 thing for _years_ --- I want something modern with high-resolution colour graphics....

[WillAdams → noduerme]

No idea what it's like now.

Maybe try HyperNext Studio?

https://tigabyte.com/

[jimbosis → WillAdams]

The folks at OpenXTalk are continuing to develop fork(s) of the final Open Source LiveCode Community Edition.

https://www.openxtalk.org/

https://www.openxtalk.org/OXTDownloads.html

https://www.openxtalk.org/forum/

The forum seems a little disorganized to me, but I lurk a few times a year and get the pulse of how the development is going by reading the recent-ish posts.

From the first link:

"What is OpenXTalk?

OpenXTal k [sic] is the working name of a fork of the now unsupported Legacy LiveCode Community Edition project, with the goal of keeping a FREE OPEN SOURCE xTalk language publicly available...."

Edit: Newline formatting.

[WillAdams → jimbosis]

I've tried the downloads from there a few times, and never got a working result --- I'll keep an eye on it and keep trying though.

[msie → WillAdams]

I just discovered that the wxWidget library has Ruby (and python) bindings! wxRuby3. And it works on OSX, Windows and Linux.

[musicale → WillAdams]

> closed the code again

I hate it when that happens.