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HyperCard.

It's been decades and I've still never found a better way to make simple GUI applications.



It's an absolute mystery to me why this hasn't happened even through the open source community.

For a tour down memory lane: https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-archive...


Simple point and click programming tools are not a stable state.

The problem is people start using them. Then they have collective needs. Then the tool adds complexity to make those needs go away. Thus begins the slow process towards the tool no longer being simple and/or maintainable.

You could do it, but you’d need a Craigslist-like “we’re not adding anything, it seems to work ok” attitude.

That attitude is totally incompatible with VCs, who generally set the tone in this industry.


There have been a bunch of attempts, but nothing takes off really. I think the closest is LiveCode which used to be proprietary but was open sourced some time ago.

Of course there is also https://vipercard.net/

Also i made this some time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshZHDDruAE (the URL at the video is outdated, the code is now at http://runtimeterror.com/rep/lilcard but note that after i made the video above i lost interest).


Microsoft's PowerApps is pretty neat and reminded me of Hypercard. It's Office365 cloud-only though.


Oh yes! I keep BasiliskII installed on my Mac so I can run HyperCard (AppleWorks too).


What about Livecode?




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