schwartz@gumball.ils.nwu.edu (11/30/89)
From: Diane Schwartz <schwartz@gumball.ils.nwu.edu> Does anyone know if an Interface Builder exists for the Mac II family similar to (or anything remotely close to) the Interface Builder on the NeXT machine? I'm interested in either third party software or public domain software. I'll take any hints available. Thanks schwartz@ils.nwu.edu
chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively) (11/30/89)
In article <1703@accuvax.nwu.edu> schwartz@gumball.ils.nwu.edu writes: > From: Diane Schwartz <schwartz@gumball.ils.nwu.edu> > > > Does anyone know if an Interface Builder exists for the Mac II family > similar to (or anything remotely close to) the Interface Builder on > the NeXT machine? I'm interested in either third party software or > public domain software. I'll take any hints available. Perhaps the closest thing I've seen, at this point, is AID, the Allegro Interface Designer, which ships with Macintosh Allegro Common Lisp version 1.3. I have 1.3 final, but I just got it recently, so I don't know if 1.3 is available through APDA yet or not. __________________________________________________________________________ Just because I work for Apple Computer, Inc. doesn't mean that they believe what I believe or vice-versa. __________________________________________________________________________ C++ -- The language in which only friends can access your private members. __________________________________________________________________________
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (11/30/89)
>In article <1703@accuvax.nwu.edu> schwartz@gumball.ils.nwu.edu writes: > Does anyone know if an Interface Builder exists for the Mac II family > similar to (or anything remotely close to) the Interface Builder on > the NeXT machine? I'm interested in either third party software or > public domain software. I'll take any hints available. I have used Prototyper from SmethersBarnes. It costs $189 from MacConnection, other mail orders houses have a similar price. It lets you click and drag to build up an interface with menus, windows, dialogs, alerts, etc. Then you can have it spit out several flavors of Pascal or C code. The code is not optimized, but it runs and MAY serve as a starting place for a finished application. There have been several new CASE tools and code generators introduced in the last 9 months. Prototyper is the only one I have used, though. --scott -- Scott Truesdell
silverio@brahms.berkeley.edu (C J Silverio) (12/01/89)
In article <1703@accuvax.nwu.edu> schwartz@gumball.ils.nwu.edu writes:
Does anyone know if an Interface Builder exists for the Mac II family
similar to (or anything remotely close to) the Interface Builder on
the NeXT machine? I'm interested in either third party software or
public domain software. I'll take any hints available.
Scott Truesdell:
I have used Prototyper from SmethersBarnes. It costs $189 from
MacConnection, other mail orders houses have a similar price. It lets
you click and drag to build up an interface with menus, windows,
dialogs, alerts, etc. Then you can have it spit out several flavors of
Pascal or C code. The code is not optimized, but it runs and MAY serve
as a starting place for a finished application.
I will be providing a full review of Prototyper in the upcoming Macker
journal. There is also a review in a fairly recent MacTutor, which is
almost coherent enough to tell what's going on.
Here's the highpoints:
Prototyper does what Scott T claims. It is fairly easy to use
(although the interface has little weirdnesses around the edges).
If you order it from MacConnection or from SmethersBarnes directly,
they give you a thirty-day MBG. SmethersBarnes's tech support was
excellent. They tried extra extra hard to find me answers.
The two big problems: Prototyper generates mildy ugly code, with
really quite stupid inline comments. It also is not optimized in the
worst ways. There are also a few out-and-out bugs that will require
you to fix their code, and a handful of shortcomings that are so
trivial to repair I wonder why they are in the manual rather than just
fixed. SmethersBarnes promised dozens of fixes in the next release,
but considering that this is supposed to be version 2.1, I really pity
anyone who bought version 1. Prototyper's code is hidden inside the
generator, so it would be extremely difficult to change it to suit
your whims.
I also looked briefly at AppMaker, another product of near identical
functionality. It seemed to generate even uglier code (generates a big
pile of if statements rather than a switch), but now I am forced to
wonder if its output code has fewer shortcomings and bugs. I know for
a fact that you can modify AppMaker's code (it's in resources as
text).
All in all, I am seriously thinking about returning Prototyper. It
seems to do a pretty darn good job of allowing you to "draw" your
resources on the screen and have them created -- much better than
ResEdit or whatever -- but the shortcomings of the code would indicate
that it would be simpler to generate one's own standard code to handle
things, and cut and paste as necessary.
And as a souped-up Resedit, Prototyper falls pretty short.
But more about this in the article.Chris.Parson@f54.n382.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Chris Parson) (12/05/89)
I'm not familiar with the Next interface builder, but on the Mac side you might check out Prototyper, AppMaker or Faceit ( all commercial products ). I recently got Prototyper at work and am impressed and frustrated. It's great, but I wish it could do A LITTLE BIT more. It allows you to "draw" the interface objects and link controls to other objects. You can run a "prototype" of your interface in an interpreted -type enviornment until you've got it right. Then you can run the prototype through one of the supplied code generators and get ou well commented source at the other end in C or Pascal for the popular compilers. +--- Export 2.6 -- Chris Parson via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!382!54!Chris.Parson INET: Chris.Parson@f54.n382.z1.FIDONET.ORG