Materials & Methods

GENERAL INFORMATION
Materials & Methods (M&M) is a Hypercard stack for the storage & retreival of common laboratory protocols. Each card in the stack contains a single protocol, which can be examined, printed, saved as a text file to disk, or edited. The stack is distributed with a series (lots!) of the protocols which have been used by the author & the Norm Pace lab. New protocols are easily added.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
This version of M&M (5.0) requires Hypercard version 2.0, or greater (presumably - version 2.0 isn't even really released yet as I write this!). This version of Hypercard requires System 6.0.5 (or greater). Any Macintosh computer capable of running Hypercard 2.0 should run M&M. This means AT LEAST 1Mbyte of RAM, and hopefully a hard disk. M&M cards are the standard 9" size, so that the entire card should be visible on Mac+, SE, or "Classic" screens. You should be familiar with the Macintosh environment in general, and the Hypercard environment in specific, before using M&M.

INTRODUCTION
M&M stores each protocol on one card, in a scrolling window just like this one. When M&M is started, this "Introduction" card is shown. To browse through the cards, either use the arrow buttons to the right of the card, or click the "Choose card" button. "Choose card" brings up (after an interminable delay) a scrolling list of all of the protocol cards in the stack - just double click on the one you want to go to. To print out a protocol, click on the "Printout" button; to save a protocol as a text (MacWrite) file, usable by any word processing program, just click on the "Save text file" icon.
Editing a procedure is no different than in a word processing program - just click at where you want to change something & start typing. Standard cut, copy, paste, delete, etc commands, fonts and font styles, etc, work normally. When you're finished editing, there's NO NEED TO SAVE THE CHANGES TO DISK - Hypercard saves changes automatically & continuously.
To create a new protocol card for a new protocol, just select "New card" (command-N) from the Edit menu - you'll then be prompted for a name (keep it short!) for the card, that's used in the "Choose card" list. Shazam! a new card appears with the card name at the top of the text as a reminder. A word of warning - NEVER JUST DELETE ALL OF THE TEXT FROM AN UNWANTED PROTOCOL CARD & RE-USE THE CARD - the name of the card in the "Choose card" list will NOT change, leading to mass confusion.
To delete an unwanted protocol card, just select "Delete card" from the Edit menu. After checking to make sure that's really what you want to do, the card is gone. Let me repeat myself here - NEVER RE-USE PROTOCOL CARDS.
Importing & exporting text is simple. Click the "Export text" button, & you'll be prompted for a name to save the contents of the current protocol under, as a text (MacWrite) file. To import text, click the "Import text" button & you'll be asked to locate a text (MacWrite or ACSII) file, which will be loaded into a protocol card. If the current protocol card is empty (i.e. just created), the text will go into that card. If the card already contains a protocol, a new card will be generated to contain the contents of the text file (you'll be prompted for a name for the new card, of course).

CHANGES IN VERSION 5.0
M&M 5.0 represents a continuation of the trend toward simplification of M&M followed by previous versions. It's been pointed out to me that, like many computer programs, M&M it will probably reach the peak of software perfection at exactly that point in which it ceases entirely to exist. In version 5.0, the "M&M Utilities" stack that came with previous versions is gone - M&M is now (I hope) simple enough not to require it. Also gone are the "M&M" menu, the paging between windows, file transfer, and bugs which prevented correct LaserWriter printing.

CONCLUSIONS
That's about all there is to M&M. If you have any comments, questions, problems, bug reports, etc, please feel free to contact me at:

James W. Brown
Department of Biology
Indiana university
Bloomington, IN 47405 USA

or by Bitnet at BROWNJW@IUBACS. I am also happy to give out updates of any of my stacks upon request. This is most easily (for me) done by E-mail, but can also be accomplished by slow-mail. Most of my stuff is also available from the EMBL fileserver. Feel free to copy or give away M&M, on the off chance that anyone should want it, but absolutely positively at NO CHARGE WHATEVER. As you might expect, I cannot guarantee the utility of any protocol that may appear within this stack. Follow any procedure with a critical eye - the person who typed in the protocol was probably in a hurry! If you distribute M&M with protocols you've added, PLEASE be sure to proof-read them! Good luck!

Jim Brown