RE: [Pythoncard-users] the future direction of PythonCard

[Patrick K. O'B. <po...@or...>]

Having never used HyperCard, I don't feel particularly qualified to point in
any particular direction and say "go that way." But I do think the current
direction, however vague or grand, has produced some very nice results. It
certainly motivated me to create PyCrust at a time when I was itching to
prove that it was quite possible to create a wxPython-based shell using
Scintilla in a reasonable timeframe and with competitive features[1].

Now my interest is in creating applications using ZODB as the persistence
mechanism. Between Andy working on relational storage and me working on
object storage we should be able to meet the PythonCard requirement of
multiple windows and transparent saves. The work on ZODB has been slow,
because not many people are using it outside of Zope. Therefore, I'm having
to build up a toolkit as I go[2]. Whatever I come up with should be usable
within PythonCard in some fashion.

Personally, I think it might be easier to get momentum going if we defined
the minimum set of features required to release a version of PythonCard that
people could commit to and start using. Then we can add features and rework
things as we go. For me, my pet project right now is creating one or two
simple sample applications using ZODB for storage. The first one I'm working
on is called NoteKeeper, and will probably be a simple
outliner/PIM/organizer. It will likely have just two classes at first,
Folder and Note. A folder can contain other folders in your basic hierarchy.
A folder can also contain any number of notes, which are just text blobs.
With this foundation, it should be possible to store todo lists, calendars,
projects, outlines of any sort, etc. We'll see where it goes beyond that.

So for me, the focus will be on getting this app created. Anything
PythonCard has that makes this easier will make me happy. Anything that
PythonCard is missing will make me mad. If I get mad enough, I end up
writing code that makes me happy. Lather, rinse, repeat. <wink> That's my
two bits. I'm in this for the long haul.

Pat

[1] The CVS version of PyCrust now has full support for multi-line commands.
You can scroll back to any line of a multi and the whole command is copied
down where it can be modified, including adding and deleting lines. The
command history retrieval functions (Ctrl-Up or Alt-P, Ctrl-Down or Alt-N,
F8) all retrieve entire multi-line commands as well. The retrieval method
has been modified as well so that retrieved commands are inserted into the
existing command (and highlighted), making it easier to build new commands
that make use of old commands. Give it a try and let me know if anything
breaks.

[2] My ZODB toolkit and sample applications are available at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/orbtech/. At this time they are only
available in CVS, and are in a state of constant modification as I figure
out what I'm doing with ZODB.

---
Patrick K. O'Brien
Orbtech
"I am, therefore I think."