Tiles are the canvases that you add fields or buttons to. You can also set a picture that is shown behind fields and buttons. Each stack can have many tiles and often times the tiles are connected to each other directly through buttons on the stacks. However some stacks behave more like slideshow presentations, in which case you simply use the built in navigation buttons at the bottom of a stack to flip between the tiles.

Simply put, it's a collection of multiple tiles and backgrounds. You can also think of it as a mini web application, widget or gadget.

Backgrounds behave pretty much exactly like Tiles. You can add fields and buttons to them and you can have multiple backgrounds in a stack. The difference is that a background can be shared between multiple tiles, thus allowing common fields and buttons to appear on more than one tile. To setup a tile to use an existing background, simply go to a tile that already uses the background you want to use, and then click the "+" button to add a new tile. That's it... the new tile will share the background from the other tile.

Buttons can be thought of as a way to add interactions to a stack. A simple case might be a button that performs a simple task, such as navigating to a different tile or computing a value from two field values.

A frequent use of buttons is to set their style to transparent and then place them on top of a background or tile picture. These relatively simple steps can be repeated multiple times to create an interactive picture.

Fields can be thought of as containers that store pieces of information. Typically you add a field to a background rather than a tile so that the field appears on all tiles that use the background. The information stored in a background field is unique to each tile by default. This makes it easy to setup a simple system for organizing information since you only need to add a set of fields once to a background and then you can just add a new tile every time you have a new 'record' of information to store. For instance, in the case of a stack used to store recipes you might have just one background with all the recipe fields, but you'd have one tile for each recipe that contains the actual information for the recipe.

Essentially TileStack can be thought of as an online playground where people of all ages are free to create neat things that we call 'stacks'. Adapting concepts from the incredibly popular classic HyperCard system from Apple, a stack consists of one or more 'tiles' that take a person who uses the stack down a path leading from one tile to the next. In a simple case, each tile can contain a different picture and text, in effect creating a simple online and shareable slideshow.

You can also add buttons to any tile that respond to something a user does. For example, clicking on a doorway in a picture could display the message "Welcome to My Home" and then go to the next tile in the stack that shows a picture of the inside of the home.

You can add input fields to tiles to create a custom system for storing information. Have a collection of recipes? Would you like to organize your movie collection? Just create a stack that fits what you needs. And of course, after you create something neat, you can publish your creation on TileStack.com for others to use and learn from.

Likewise you can explore the published stacks that others have made. Making it easy to learn new things and pick up cool ideas. And finally, if you happen to have some of classic HyperCard stacks laying around, you can upload them to TileStack.com and use them once again!

Yes. Just click the "Embed/Export" button on any published stack's page and you'll see this:

Anyone can embed any published stack on their blog or web page, download as a Mac OS X Dashboard Widget, or add it to iGoogle as a gadget. If you are the creator of the stack, you also have the option to publish it as a Facebook application.

We are working hard to expand this list, so keep checking back for more options.