LiveCode Journal - Features

Help! Part 1: Help! How do I get started

So you've downloaded Revolution, installed it, and booted it up. Now what do you do? Join us for a look at some existing tools to get you started...

Revolution opens an array of windows and palettes for you: a menubar, toolbar, probably a tips window, and a documentation window. (The exact layout may vary if you have run the program before and changed any settings.)

The first thing you should look at is a documentation window suggesting various starting points, depending on your previous experience. If any of these categories applies to you, then start by reading through the relevant section. You may have already changed the settings so that this is not the first window shown to you: if so, open the documentation from the toolbar or the Help menu, chose the Roadmap, then select "Welcome to Revolution."

The Tips section has some valuable information but is probably more useful when you know a bit more about Revolution.

Next stop is the Tutorials:

Choose Documentation from the Help menu, then Roadmap, and then Tutorials. No matter what your level of experience, I strongly recommend running through all of these. If you are familiar with this style of programming, they won't take very long, but they give a very good introduction to the way that Revolution can be used to construct your own programs.

The last tutorial - the Independent Study - contains superbly commented scripts that are very helpful in showing how a program can be put together.

These tutorials do an excellent job of explaining how to create, modify, and manipulate objects but for a tutorial with more emphasis on scripting, I recommend the MetaCard Teaching Program - mtp.mc. This can be downloaded from http://www.metacard.com/pi6.html (scroll down to near the bottom of the page).

MetaCard was the original basis for Revolution, as they wrote the underlying engine while Runtime Revolution added a new user interface plus a host of new features. Runtime Revolution has since purchased MetaCard. Any MetaCard stacks can be opened and run in Revolution -- change the extension from .mc to .rev, and you'll be on your way. Mac people (especially OS 9) may also want to change the file type and creator. There is an AppleScript droplet at my website that does this automatically: http://www.troz.net/Rev/RevProjects/RevDroplet.sit

Websites:

Well you're here! That's a good start. Head over to the revJournal tutorials page and follow through the lessons, which cover general programming techniques as well as specific Revolution scripts. There are more lessons on the way, so keep watching...

Another valuable site to bookmark is the use-revolution mailing list archive: http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/. If you are having a particular problem, it's always worth checking to see if someone else has already solved it. If you need to search the archives, try: http://mindlube.com/cgi-bin/search-use-rev.cgi

Books:

So far there are no printed books specifically for Revolution but there are alternatives. Hypercard is the ancestor of all the xTalk-based languages like Revolution, so any Hypercard book is a good starting point. While Revolution allows different ways of doing some things, nearly all Hypercard techniques can be applied directly to Revolution. The exceptions would be menus, graphics and color.

Recommended Hypercard books are: Danny Goodman's "The Complete Hypercard Handbook," Dan Shafer's "Hypertalk Programming," and Winkler, Kamins & Devoto's Hypertalk 2.2: The Book.
One of the authors of the last one is Jeanne Devoto, who wrote all the original Revolution documentation.
Some of these books are out of print, but second-hand copies can usually be found at Amazon.

Dan Shafer is working on a Revolution book. For more info, check out his web site: http://www.altuit.com/webs/dshafer/RevolutionPros/default.htm

Geoff Canyon has set up a wiki for additional Revolution documentation at http://wiki.macitworks.com/revdocs/ and it includes the outline for a book but I'm not sure if that is still an on-going project: http://wiki.macitworks.com/revdocs/2382

Finally, don't ignore Revolution's own documentation. It is massively detailed - so much so that it can be hard to find what you're looking for. In the Transcript Dictionary, use the "Show" popup menu to narrow the list to the relevant section, e.g. select "All properties - Field" to display a list of all properties associated with every field object. Another tip: when reviewing an open dictionary item, always check the "See also" popup for related entries, cookbook recipes and general information.

Well, I reckon that's enough for today. Next time, I'll run through some of the web sites out there with examples stacks, hints & tips.

Until then,
Sarah