To establish the baseline MetaCard stack, I am considering writing a
conversion/import utility which, once in place, would streamline the creation
of all objects (e.g., backgrounds, cards, buttons, fields, etc.) and their
scripts within MetaCard. Any insights, or knowledge of previous/on-going work
in this area would be greatly appreciated.
My application currently displays images and graphics files (in PICT format) in
a window. I'd like to retain this same capability in the MetaCard version, but
am not sure whether or not I'll need to code a PICT importing external to
provide this capability in MetaCard.
And most significantly, the stack currently interacts extensively with a Sybase
data base server (over a network) using the XFCNs/XCMDs provided with Hyper
DB-Library (from Sybase). It appears that MetaCard would accommodate this in
(at least) one of two methods. (1) Coding external commands and functions in C
to access the data base through Sybase's DB-Library C interface. I'm not sure
if the Sybase SQL Server can be accessed directly from MetaCard externals,
however. (2) As an alternative, I could develop a separate Unix application
(in C), and have it access the SQL Server through Sybase's DB-Library (pretty
standard), and exchanging data (queries/returned data base results) between
this other process and MetaCard using Unix sockets.
Also, there seems to be a wealth of publicly available XFCNs and XCMDs for
HyperCard/SuperCard. Anyone aware of a similar repository for MetaCard
callable externals?
Jack Kearney
Sterling Software