Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!husc6!kolodny@husc4.UUCP From: kolodny@husc4.UUCP (Jonathan Kolodny) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard Subject: Re: What should I do about visual effects on MAC II's Message-ID: <2408@husc6.harvard.edu> Date: 9 Aug 89 20:44:26 GMT References: <116@citycs.UUCP> Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu Reply-To: kolodny@husc4.UUCP Lines: 36 From article <116@citycs.UUCP>, by luke@cs.city.ac.uk (Luke Whitaker): > Thanks for the feedback about setting the userlevel. I still haven't decided > what I should do but at least now I've got some more ideas to go on! > > Another thing I would like to get straight is the problem with visual effects > that don't work on the MAC II. (I'm talking about "visual effect dissolve" > etc). I don't have access to one so I can't test this out but I believe its > got something to do with the depth of the bit-image, or maybe wether colour is > on or not ? > > Specifically what I need to know is: Can I set the graphics mode of the MAC II > from hypercard so that the visual effects WILL work, and if so how. Do I need > an XCMD or can it be done by HyperTalk ? I've never seen this mentioned in any > of my HyperTalk books so I assume it will require an XCMD. A simple > alternative might be to detect that the stack was running on a MACII and tell > the user what to do to get the visual effects working. > > Thanks in advance, > Mail me and I will summarise, > I was having the same problem on my IIcx with a monochrome monitor, so I went to the Apple booth at MacWorld Industry Day today, and I asked their Hypercard representative about it. He explained that, because 8-bit graphics are too slow to handle visual effects, the only way for Hypercard to handle visual effects on a gray-scale or color monitor is to restart the the machine and reset the color to 2-bit (i.e. black and white). I haven't been home yet to try this out, but it sounds perfectly plausible. Now I can only wonder why this "fact" wasn't made clear either in the Hypercard User's manual or any of the Hypercard/Hypertext programming books I have seen... Hope this helps, Jonathan Kolodny Programmer/Software Developer Harvard Computer Services