mdavis@pro-sol.cts.com (Morgan Davis) (02/03/89)
Dave Lyons did an excellent explanation of resources and why REAL PROGRAMMERS would love to have them on the IIGS. Mostly, Dave extolled the virtues of resources as making programming easier (one step to create a dialog box with lots of controls instead of a bizillion obscure instructions). But there is another great reason that he didn't touch upon directly. When you're coding an application you tend to make a lot of changes to the data -- called "tweaking". For example, if the string you're printing isn't just where you want it you have to go into the source, change your X or Y coordinate (an integer), recompile, and then run the program again. This could take quite some time, especially if your program is not modularized and segmented. With resources, you need only to bring up ResEdit, change the value of your print coordinate, and then re-run your application. You completely side-step the entire recompile/link phase (and whatever else it might take to build your application, like compacting to OMF II on the IIGS). When I use the IIGS, I have to keep a lot of notepads and pens around to jot down things I need to tweak the next time I'm in the editor with my source. On the Macintosh, you just quit your application, change the resource data directly, and re-run. It's great for doing that stuff you hate to do on the IIGS: fixing spelling errors and typos, centering strings, moving dialog boxes, adjusting button locations and sizes, using different colors, etc. ResEdit also allows you to move resources from one program to another. So if there is a nice icon that some other program has, you can essentially grab it and use it in your program. --Morgan Davis UUCP: crash!pnet01!pro-sol!mdavis ProLine: mdavis@pro-sol ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-sol!mdavis@nosc.mil MCI Mail: 137-6036 INET: mdavis@pro-sol.cts.com APE, BIX: mdavis