Resource Materials & Technology Center for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing

Hyperstudio Resources

Tips and Tricks-From Kay Ezzell's Tech Notes

Tips and Tricks

SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT YOUR HYPERSTUDIO PROJECT

     One beneficial thing I did with with my students after completing a HyperStudio project
     was to critique our work. As a group, I had the students look at each other's project. We
     asked some of the following questions:

          Does the stack communicate what you want it to?
          Does the stack have meaning?
          Does the project contain original, uncopyrighted sounds, graphics, and text?
          Is it clear how to navigate through the stack?
          Does the stack follow the original storyboard?
          Do the colors, fonts, graphics, etc. support the project?
          Are the colors, fonts, and font sizes easy to read?
          Is credit given for the resources used and the authors of the project?

It was a good opportunity for the students to give each other constructive criticism, and also to see what works and what doesn't work. Have any of you tried anything like this? Do you have other questions you ask?

Assessment: It is also good for students to know what is expected of them before the project begins. One of the best ways to do this is to give the students a rubric. You can download a rubric that I made a couple of years ago at http://www.fsdb.k12.fl.us/edsites/edsites.html. You will find it at the bottom of the page. You just need Acrobat Reader to view the file. Everyone should have this free program. You can download it at http://www.adobe.com. It is available for both Mac and Windows computers.

Selection Tools: These are at the top of the tool bar, the dotted square, circle and the lasso. These are tools not shapes!

The square: Point and drag to select an area. When you see the "marching ants", you can move your mouse over the box (your arrow will turn into a cross) and drag to move the object. Or you can hit 'delete' to delete the object. Or you can go to EDIT and choose 'copy' to copy the object. If you double click the square selection tool, it will select the entire card. If you hold down the option key and drag the object, it will make a duplicate. Once an image is selected (it has marching ants), you can move the mouse over the marching ants and drag to change the size of the object. Click and drag the corner diagonally to change both the top and bottom and the sides at the same time. You can also click and drag the sides and the top and bottom separately.

The circle: The circle works like the square except that it (obviously) makes a circle around the object rather than a square. Double clicking on the circle selection tool will select a circle the size of the card.

The lasso: Use the lasso to select odd-shaped objects. If your background is white, you can lasso something to select the object without having any white edges. If you double click the lasso, it will select all the objects on the card - if the background is white. If the background is not white, it will select the whole card. As with the other selection tools, you can hold down the option key and drag the object to duplicate it. AND if you hold down the option key and click in an area, it will select the area that's the same color. If the object is one color, then it will select the whole object.

So, if you want a picture of just the state of Florida, you can bring in the US Map that is in HyperStudio's Art Folder. Select the lasso, hold down the option key, and click inside the state of Florida. Now the ants should be marching around the state of Florida. You can then go up to EDIT and copy. Now you can double click on the square selection tool to select the whole card and delete the map of the United States, or you can go to EDIT and choose 'Erase Background'. Now your screen should be blank (or have a single color background). Go to EDIT and paste Florida onto your card.

Want to make it bigger? While you still have the marching ants, go to EDIT, down to EFFECTS, and choose 'scale'. Change it to 200% to make it twice the size that it is. Now, while it still has marching ants around it, you can make it into a graphic object by going to OBJECTS and choose 'Add a Graphic Object...'. It will ask you if you want to make the selected item into a graphic object. Say yes. You can put a border around the state by choosing a color (like black or blue) and moving the arrow up to 1 or 2. You can see what it will look like in the window. When you are finished, click OK. Now you can choose the arrow tool to move it around.

Gradients - Have you experimented with the effects in the newer versions of HyperStudio? They're great! Use your rectangle or circle selection tool to draw a square or circle. You should have marching ants. Go to EDIT to EFFECTS and choose GRADIENTS. Choose a beginning color and an ending color and pick Vertical, Horizontal, Circle, or Rectangle. Note: Vertical and Horizontal are backwards. You will see a sample in the preview window. Click OK. You will now have a rectangle or circle with a gradient color. Looks neat! Try it with letters. Double click on the T (text) tool and choose the font you want, a large size, and the other features you want. Click OK. Click on the card and type something. Now use the lasso to select the text. You should have marching ants around your letters (if you had a white background). Go to EFFECTS-GRADIENT again and follow the directions I wrote above. Click OK. You should have letters with a gradient coloring.

When you're experimenting with things like this, it might be a good idea to work on a separate card (with a white background), this would be your draft/practice/edit card. When you're satisfied with what you've done, use the selection tools to copy it. Then go to your other card and paste it in.

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New Button Actions (NBAs)
Have you played with the NBAs in HyperStudio? No, I'm not talking about basketball! NBAs are New Button Actions. When you create a button, you will get to the button action box where you choose the action you want your button to take. One of the options on the right side is New Button Actions. When you choose this option, you will get a box with a list of NBAs that are included in the HyperStudio application on your hard drive. If you click on one of these, you will see an explanation of the NBA on the right along with an explanation of how to use it. Some of the NBAs included with HyperStudio are:

There are other NBAs in HyperStudio and from third-party sources. Explore these options within HyperStudio.

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Extras
Check under your Extras menu and see if you have an extra for Box Maker, Check Spelling, and Text Field Tamer. These are great extras that you can add to HyperStudio with the Extra Manager. If you don't have them, see if they're on your CD-ROM. If they're not or if you don't have a CD-ROM, you may be able to download them from the HyperStudio web site (http://www.hyperstudio.com/). If this isn't an option, contact me and I will send them to you.

Box Maker will make 3D boxes for you. Check Spelling will do just that - check the spelling in text objects (or even in painted text if you haven't clicked off of it yet). Text Field Tamer will make all of the text objects in your entire stack Read Only at one time. This will make all those blinking cursors disappear! BUT if you are trying to use GhostWriter, you don't want to make that text object read only or your ghostwriting won't work!

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HyperStudio Play: Share Your Stacks
Both Windows and Mac PCs can see HyperStudio stacks if you have the HyperStudio player for the respective platforms. If you don't already have them, you can download them from http://www.hyperstudio.com/. BUT if you want to be able to use stacks on both platforms, you need to save them with a name that is no more than six letters with an .stk extension (i.e., demo.stk). You must put them on a PC-formated disk. Remember that Macs can read PC-formated disks, but PCs can't read Mac-formatted disks.

If the stack is too large for a disk, you must "zip" it. That is the PC version of stuffing it. You can do this with a program called "ZipIt". If you're opening a PC-stuffed program on a Mac, you can use "ZipIt" or "UnZip" to unstuff it. But remember that the two platforms don't use the same fonts, so text boxes may look different. If you painted your text, it won't matter.

I would suggest that you get in the habit of using the above method of naming your stacks. Renaming stacks can get complicated if you have several stacks in one project. Your buttons will be looking for your original stack names. Then you have to edit all of your buttons. Better to do it this way to begin with. Sharing stacks between platforms is becoming more and more common. Your students can take their stacks home to show their parents and you can share your stacks with other teachers. You can enter contests, too! Just remember to put HyperStudio Player on the disk if the users do not have HyperStudio on their computers. And open the player before you give away the disk to make sure that it doesn't need a serial number. If it does need one, open up your HyperStudio and go to "About HyperStudio" under the apple menu. Your serial number will be on that screen.

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Sound Companion
Sound Companion is a sound editing tool available from FTC Publishing (http://www.ftcpublishing.com). It was made specifically for HyperStudio, but can also be used with other multimedia programs, such as Kid Pix, Digital Chisel, and mPower. I tried it with PowerPoint and it seems to work well there, too. With this program, you can merge sounds together. For instance, you can have your students record something about marine animals and have the sounds of waves crashing on the shore in the background - all without going to the beach. You can also add effects to sounds - effects like echoes, fading in and out, change of pitch, and playing something backwards.

Those of you who attended FETC may have picked up a demo of this program, but you can download your own demo at their web site. There are also demos of some of their other programs. The program is also cross platform (available for both Mac and Windows). For ordering information, visit FTC Publishing's web site (given above).


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Page created 9/9/99
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