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Once a staple of many a school's IT activities on a Mac, HyperStudio died a slow death after its owner sold the company. But!! It appears that it is in fact being resurrected and a PC version will come out also.....
http://www.mackiev.com/hyperstudio/index.html

Phil

Phil, that would have to be one of the best pieces of news I have heard in a long time.

There are going to be some very happy teachers on Monday when I pass this on to them. We have used Hyperstudio v3.3 (the last stable version) extensively for the past 5 years, running it in Classic as they never released an OS X version.

Our children use it as a drawing tool which they then use to create animations using Quicktime Pro. We were going to have do it other (and more complicated) ways as we have just got our first lot of MacBooks which of course can't run classic.

Thanks!

I hated HS when I first looked at it...really hated it. Then I was asked to take on a group of students having some specialist IT time in a group called (an awful name) "Extra for experts". I decided we'd do a year long project to develop an interactive CD. I claim it was the first ever done by kids (and kids only) in NZ, and so far no-one has shown me to be wrong....but probably will now that I've made that claim.

We started out by planing the navigation, consistent themes, inter-linking of stacks and more...and finally I started to like HS because we could customise it so much. Basically it got to the point that the kids made it so HS-unlike, it really showed the potential of the product.

I'm really pleased to see it back too and I think getting the chap back that started it all to perform CPR and revive it is very sensible. There are some great alternatives out there (I still like the stuff eZedia do) but nothing has been taken to heart as much as HS I think.

Phil

And going down memory lane...the kind folk at DTSL loaned me a CD writer and a copy of Toast (version 1 I think?) at the time over a weekend to burn about 80 CDs. I think it was a 2 speed writer. I remember setting a timer to wake me up every 45 minutes to change to a new CD all through the night.

I had a program called HyperCard on the Amiga which I think was a port of HyperStudio.

It was awesome and if HyperStudio is being released I might look into it for a graphic adventure ala Monkey Island that I want to make.

I can't find a single decent program for creating these types of games but have often heard of people talking about using stacks which HyperStudio obviously uses.

Here's hoping.

Yeah Hypercard was pretty much the geeky version of Hyperstudio. You know the Windows DOS to the Mac GUI type relationship.

I gave the announcement about HS in the staffroom at interval this morning and was greeted by cheers all round!

You must be doing something right with the site Phil! Do a search for Hyperstudio 5 and NZMac comes out at the top!!

Google....it's a love-hate relationship! Nice to be listed, shame about the huge amount of bandwidth their crawlers chew through

Phil

Well the NECC has finished and I haven't heard anymore about the new Hyperstudio other than what is on the website:

Create dynamic media-rich presentations of high quality with an improved powerful tool by Software MacKiev. Hyperstudio??á?Ü 5 excels in supporting project-based, student-centered learning. Collaborative work, exploration, knowledge construction, and fun are its hallmarks.

More than 200 new features including:
Podcasting Support -- Export presentations to iPod??á?Ü video format
Webcam Workshop -- 2,000 teacher-approved safe webcam locations
"Live" Object Mode -- Even individual brush strokes can be edited
Import from iTunes??á?Ü -- Bring in music from iTunes playlists
Scrapbook -- Keep frequently used objects in one convenient place
More Import Sources -- Keynote??á?Ü, Powerpoint??á?Ü, old HyperStudio??á?Ü stacks
Sticky Notes -- Can be placed on cards to provide instructions and tips
Card Browser -- Easily navigate between cards from the main screen
Additional Text Options -- Including kerning, outlines, and shadows
Advanced Graphic Effects -- Zoom blur, crystallize, bloom, glass, etc.
Tool Settings Drawer -- Contains appropriate settings for each tool
Customizable Toolbar -- Set to display the most frequently used tools
More Brush Styles -- Dozens of new brushes including 3D paint styles

As I stated in my post above, the kids use it to draw their pictures for their animated movies and they are able to use the same picture (or object) over and over and simply move it on the one card. One of the great things about HS is that you are able to export the card and it creates numerical suffixes on the exported files so that Quicktime automagically puts them into sequence. As long as this function isn't lost in the upgrade, they can do anything they like to it.

I like the concept of the scrapbook too as that will enable the kids to re-use the pictures they have drawn on previous projects.

The one downside that I can remember is that you always had to have at least the HS player installed on a machine to share your work, that's why we came up with the QT solution so that we could more easily put or movies onto our school website and/or edit them in iMovie.

Anyway, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy, I hope it is available online, then I won't have to wait for Renaissance to get it in. If it is I know what I'll be doing these school holidays!!

I liked the concept of the web-browser plugin too, but it would be great if all this was delivered through something far more ubiquitous like Flash as it would solve your issue (the need for a player) and mine (a web plugin needed).

Phil

Hi all,

Thought I'd let you know that I got a nice email from Roger Wagner (of HyperStudio fame!!) today who had come across this thread. Great to see him spotting our discussion and I've flicked him back some comments. So if you're a HyperStudio user (or ex-user) and have some comments to make on what you'd like to see (no guarantees of course) feel free to post here.

Cheers, Phil