Robert Howe's Macintosh Page

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Robert Howe's Macintosh page

My Macintosh page contains:

Export HyperCard field text to tab-delimited text file
How Many Days
Utilities for mainframe data
AppleScript utilities/templates
Dvorak Keyboard Layout (based on SMC's (typewriter) Dvorak keyboard layout)

Export HyperCard field text to tab-delimited text file

Every so often, someone writes in to the Macintosh Manager's mail list, saying "I have a client who keeps [phone numbers, contact information, whatever] in a hypercard stack. I want to bring them up to date by giving them [a palm pilot, a pager, whatever]. How can I get all that information out of HyperCard easily?"

If you know HyperTalk and have the full retail version of HyperCard, you wouldn't even bother to ask. But most Managers don't want to learn HyperTalk or buy the retail version of HyperCard. I, on the other hand, have fun creating little utilities, so over the Lincoln's Birthday long weekend (2000) I wrote this pair of AppleScripts to export data from text fields into a text file.

Since then, I had reports that some people have hit various out-of-memory problems. I rewrote the scripts in Hypercard, and saved them as a stand-alone application. THAT ought to fix the problems. I hope.

So which should you use? The Applescripts or the HyperCard version?

Personally, I think the Applescript version is easier to use. You'll need the HyperCard player (version 2.2 or later, as that's when HyperCard became AppleScriptable). Drop your stack on the first AppleScript, and it'll put all the data in text fields into a text file. Each field's text will be separated by a TAB character; each card's text will be separated by a return. If by chance a field already has a tab or return or a line feed in it, the script will substitute the strings <TAB>, <CR>, or <LF>, respectively. The second script is there in case the file you have is really a Standalone HyperCard stack--but you won't need it unless the first script says to try it.

NEWER: Still, if you hit the out-of-memory problem as well, then give the Hypercard version a try. Download the free (but copyright 2003 Robert Howe) Export Stack Data 1.1.0 Standalone HyperCard application; it's a binhexed Compact Pro self-extracting archive. It comes with an Applescript droplet you might need: Change to HyperCard Stack, to be used with extreme caution as there's no undo available.

No luck with either of these? Write to me. I'm not fast in coming up with a solution, but I'll eventually get to it.

How Many Days

"How Many Days" is my shareware program that will calculate the number of days from one date to another, from year 1 to 4000. It'll consider the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar for several countries.
I've been meaning to update HMD, but I just haven't been able to make the time. I wrote it in C, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but the longer you're away from C code, the harder it is to get back into it. Still, I've made a few attempts at the new version, and one of these days I'll actually get it done. In the meantime, there's the existing version:
How Many Days download.

Mainframe data HyperCard utilities

I've worked with mainframe computers for about 10+ years, from 1989 to early 2001, and then I switched jobs to where they want data off a mini computer. Folks I've worked with have asked for data from these computers, but the raw data is, well, raw. You can write cumbersome CoBOL or Natural programs to format the data, but it's a heck of a lot faster to dump data to my Macintosh, and let HyperCard turn the data into something any personal computer can use.
These utilites were created for pretty much just my use, and I'm releasing them 'as-is'. I know the interface needs work, but hey...what I'm really doing is putting these so I can grab them whenever I need them, where ever I am.
Read 30k from a file
Useful when you have a huge (hundreds of megabytes) text file, and just want to see a little bit of it.
Generic Text File Combiner 1.0
Handy when you have multiple text files that you want combined into one.
Generic File Splitter 1.3 (updated 5-18-2004)
If you have a huge file that you want to split into manageable chunks, this is for you. It'll also (optionally) pad out each line with spaces to a specified number of characters...not that you'll ever need this, but I did.

Applescript items

I'm slowly migrating away from HyperCard to Applescript...but I'll really miss HyperCard. Still, one must move with the times, and the OSX AppleScript Studio previews is looking pretty darn good. If there was ever a reason to move to OSX, this is it!
Display first 250 characters of a text file
Similar to the HyperCard utility that'll read the first 30K of a file, except this lets you drop a file on it and it'll display just the first 250 characters. But sometimes that's enough.
Tex-Edit AppleScript template
Handy if you write Tex-Edit scripts a lot. I do. Note: this version uses 'paragraphs' instead of 'lines', which is probably what you want. (I sometimes accidentally use 'lines' in AppleScript because of HyperCard's syntax...a line in HyperCard is a paragraph to everything else.)
Tex-Edit Assorted scripts
This is a folder with 4 Tex-Edit Plus scripts. Once you've selected some text, these will

insert before the selection, and after the selection, keeping the selected text selected (shortcut: command-shift-B);
insert before the selection, and after the selection, keeping the selected text selected (shortcut: command-shift-I);
insert before the selection, and after the selection, keeping the selected text selected (shortcut: command-shift-N); and
perform a find and replace on the selected text (you'll enter the parameters one by one...sorry), and keep the selected text selected. It won't do a find on font, size, style, or color--just plain old text. But you can change the script to do that for you if you want. (shortcut: command-shift-F)
The folder can be dropped into Tex-Edit's scripts folder.
Turn TEXT document into Tex-Edit Plus (Droplet)
Takes all those generic TEXT documents you have and sets the creator code to Tex-Edit Plus.
Turn TEXT document into BBEdit documents (Droplet)
Takes all those generic TEXT documents you have and sets the creator code to BBEdit.
What Type/Creator Am I? (Droplet). Drop a file on this, and a dialog will tell you its file type and creator code. Just in case you were wondering, that is. Only works on files. Folders not accepted.

Dvorak Keyboard Layout

I have my own Dvorak Keyboard layout; it matches the layout that came with my SMC Typewriter. It differs from the Dvorak layouts available now in the placement of the semicolon, question mark, and quote keys. It's here because--you guessed it--I want to be able to grab it from anywhere.
My Dvorak Keyboard Layout.
American Simplified Keyboard layout

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http://homepage.mac.com/rhowehmd/Inreach/Macintosh.html
May 18, 2004