[comp.sys.mac.programmer] Interface Builder for MacApp

yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) (03/23/90)

Will we be seeing, someday, a tool for use
with MacApp analagous to Interface Builder
on the NeXT?  It's *long* overdue.

 --dave yost
   yost@dpw.com or uunet!esquire!yost
   Please ignore the From or Reply-To fields above, if different.

siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (03/23/90)

In article <1878@esquire.UUCP> yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) writes:
>Will we be seeing, someday, a tool for use
>with MacApp analagous to Interface Builder
>on the NeXT?  It's *long* overdue.

	MacApp 2.0 comes with ViewEdit, which allows you to graphically
prepare views (which includes windows, dialogs, controls, edit panes, etc.)

R.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Rich Siegel
 Staff Software Developer
 Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group
 Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu
 UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel

"When someone who makes four hundred and fifty dollars an hour wants to
tell you something for free, it's a good idea to listen."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) (03/24/90)

In article <2327@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.UUCP (Rich Siegel) writes:
>In article <1878@esquire.UUCP> yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) writes:
>>Will we be seeing, someday, a tool for use
>>with MacApp analagous to Interface Builder
>>on the NeXT?  It's *long* overdue.
>
>	MacApp 2.0 comes with ViewEdit, which allows you to graphically
>prepare views (which includes windows, dialogs, controls, edit panes, etc.)
>

Man, here's Rich saying *nice* things about Apple, forcing me into the
unenviable position of taking the opposite side.

Well, sort of. Yes, ViewEdit does all that Rich says. It allows you to create
layouts for your windows and dialogs. However, it's not much more than the
DITL editor for ResEdit. You layout little rectangles that represent your
view objects, and you can double click on them to edit the small particulars.
When that's all done, you can either incorporate the result right into your
application, or you can DeRez it for some finer tweaking in the MPW editor.

But that's all. There are many limitations to ViewEdit. For instance, you can
only manipulate one item at a time; you can't make multiple selections and
drag them all around at once. You can't see the layout as it would appear in
the final application; all you see are rectangles that *represent* the objects
in the window. In order to see what the final result would look like, you have
to build it into the application. There is no facility for viewing your view
hierarchy in a tree-like fashion; if one view object overs another, there is no
way to see that or know that without moving the obscuring view. Finally, there
is no message passing building system, where you can define what actions send
what messages to what objects. All of that must be coded into your Pascal or
C++ source by hand.

This is just a short list of things that we at Apple would like to see in
ViewEdit. They aren't in ViewEdit 1.0 (comes with MacApp 2.0), nor will we
be able to get them into ViewEdit 2.0 (for the next version of MacApp). We
should be able to get multiple selection in, along with a bunch of things that
I haven't mentioned, but will be limited due to time constraints. I expect that
ViewEdit 3.0 will be a lot more powerful and useful.

But by that time, who knows what Interface Builder will be like...

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Rollin  ---  Apple Computer, Inc.  ---  Developer Technical Support
INTERNET: keith@apple.com
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"Argue for your Apple, and sure enough, it's yours" - Keith Rollin, Contusions

hpoppe@ncar.ucar.edu (Herb Poppe) (03/24/90)

In article <2327@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) 
writes:
> In article <1878@esquire.UUCP> yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) writes:
> >Will we be seeing, someday, a tool for use
> >with MacApp analagous to Interface Builder
> >on the NeXT?  It's *long* overdue.
> 
>         MacApp 2.0 comes with ViewEdit, which allows you to graphically
> prepare views (which includes windows, dialogs, controls, edit panes, 
etc.)

Does THINK Pascal 3.0 have a similar tool?

Herb Poppe            NCAR
hpoppe@ncar.ucar.edu  1850 Table Mesa Drive
                      Boulder, CO  80307-3000
                      (303) 497-1296