kim@analog.UUCP (Kim Helliwell) (04/24/88)
This is a gripe about the current extant resource editor, and a request for
help. I recently spent a half hour downloading the "latest" version of
ResEdit (1.2d, I believe). As has been usual for the several versions
of this program I have tried to use, it crashed several times while I was
experimenting with it. Crashes are frequently associated with use of the
font editor portion, but certainly not limited to the font editor.
Mild Flame: While it is admirable for Apple to continually release this
program to the public for the cost of a download, and I am aware of the
economic issues governing the support of free programs, and so on, it seems
intolerable that ResEdit and some shareware font and icon editors are apparently
the only alternative for this function. I am not ungrateful to Apple for
ResEdit, as it does (barely) work well enough for me to use it for my
small personal development tasks. But I am about to the point where I would
welcome a fully supported and "bug free" version of the program for which I
would gladly pay $100-200. Why doesn't Apple do this, or contract with
somebody else to do it? Or, why doesn't someone else just go ahead and write
one? This strikes me as a commercial opportunity, even with the extant version
that is now available.
Am I missing something? Does APDA sell a better version of ResEdit than is
uploaded to BBS's? Or does some other company have a better one?
Well, if not, maybe I should write one! :-).
Here is what I would like to see:
1. A decent font editor which doesn't crash or scramble fonts.
2. A graphic menu editor which is faster than the current slooooow
one.
3. Graphic interfaces wherever possible and appropriate (ie, ability
to draw PICT resources directly in the editor, rather than the
current roundabout method of generatine PICT's.)
4. A reasonable text editor method for generating text resources.
5. A simple well documented way of including custom editors in the
main shell (Apple promised years ago to tell how to do this with
ResEdit, but as far as I know, has never done so)
The draw capabilities don't have to be fancy (I don't want a MacDraw),
but must work! Ditto the text edit facility.
Kim Helliwelloster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (04/24/88)
In article <177@wayne.analog.UUCP> kim@analog.UUCP (Kim Helliwell) gives a list of gripes about ResEdit. Here are the work arounds: >Here is what I would like to see: > 1. A decent font editor which doesn't crash or scramble fonts. I use Fontastic. It is reasonably proced and well supported. > 2. A graphic menu editor which is faster than the current slooooow > one. I just edited its Type=TMPL Id=7, Name="MENU" resource, so that all the style items are on hex byte (HBYT) instead of a series of radio buttons. That simplifies the editor enough that it flys. > 3. Graphic interfaces wherever possible and appropriate (ie, ability > to draw PICT resources directly in the editor, rather than the > current roundabout method of generatine PICT's.) Huh? I run MacDraw/MacPaint and resedit side by side in Multifinder. when i want to edit a pict, i cut it in resEdit, paste it in MacDraw, edit it, cut it in MacDraw, and paste in ResEdit. What could be more straightforward? > 4. A reasonable text editor method for generating text resources. I use a text editor. The same cut and paste technique works just fine. > 5. A simple well documented way of including custom editors in the > main shell (Apple promised years ago to tell how to do this with > ResEdit, but as far as I know, has never done so) It was completely documented in the Spring '87 (I believe) software supplement. You can replace any subeditor in ResEdit with your own, or add one. I don't understand why people think they need editors built in to resedit when they can just cut and paste data between resedit and really good editors. Sure, it is no fun searching a dozen text resources to find a string, but in about 10 minutes you can write a little C program to take a resource file of text resources (say the finder comments in the Desktop file) and write each to a folder naming each (if its resource id is, say 202, "202.c") Then, just add them to a LightSpeed C project, and use LightSpeed C's multi-file searching to find the component you want. A C program to reverse the process is also trivial. MPW users won't need to go through the kluge of giving the files a bogus ".c" extension. Similarly, I wrote a trivial program (about an hour's work) to convert entire ICONs into color quickdraw patterns (Patterns in color quickdraw may be any square with a length that is a power-of-2. Therefore, 32x32 patterns are quite reasonable. (extending this to make the upper left 512x512 square of a macpaint picture into a single pattern is also trivial)) Once again, I'll explain the point many people miss: if you enter resedit, with a PICT on your clipboard, open a file and hit 'paste' ResEdit pastes the pict into the file. Same with TEXT. If you select one PICT or TEXT and copy it to the clipboard in resEdit, then it will still be on the clipboard when you leave resedit. In resedit sub-editors like the ICON or CURSor editor will cut and pate PICTs, if you use the shift key while you mousedown and drag, to sweep out a destination rectangle. (Another nice thing about programming the mac: GetResource() and AddResource() are incredibly easy to use i/o functions. Makes me wince at the number of hours I spent in school learning to write parsers.) Copyright (c) 1988 by David Phillip Oster, All Rights Reserved --- David Phillip Oster --When you asked me to live in sin with you Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --I didn't know you meant sloth. Uucp: {uwvax,decvax,ihnp4}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu
chow@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Christopher Chow) (04/25/88)
In article <23728@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes: |gives a list of gripes about ResEdit. Here are the work arounds: | || 2. A graphic menu editor which is faster than the current slooooow || one. |I just edited its Type=TMPL Id=7, Name="MENU" resource, so that all the |style items are on hex byte (HBYT) instead of a series of radio buttons. |That simplifies the editor enough that it flys. | Or, you can just NoQuiche. Among other things, NoQuiche replaces calls to DrawControls with UpdateControl, and DrawDialog with UpdateDialog. It really makes the ResEdit MENU editor scream along. Question: NoQuiche was written a while back with the intro of the 128K ROMs. When I got a Mac II, for some reason I just automatically assumed that it wouldn't work so I tossed it out. Recently I found that it actually does work with the II, but there is a problem: I used the Kolor cdev to make my default window title bar lines colored. With NoQuiche, the lines turned back into the standard black. Has anyone gotten around to write something similar to NoQuich for the II, or does there exist a patch to remedy this (and possibly other) problems with NoQuiche on a II? Christopher Chow /---------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Internet: chow@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (128.84.248.35 or 128.84.253.35) | | Usenet: ...{uw-beaver|ihnp4|decvax|vax135}!cornell!batcomputer!chow | | Bitnet: chow@crnlthry.bitnet | | Phone: 1-607-253-6699 Address: 7122 N. Campus 7, Ithaca, NY 14853 | | Delphi: chow2 PAN: chow | \---------------------------------------------------------------------------/
blknowle@uokmax.UUCP (Bradford L Knowles) (04/25/88)
NoQuiche?
Where does one acquire this *MAGICAL* item/program/resource/whatever?
How does one convince ResEdit to use it?
-Brad Knowles
UUCP: ...!ihnp4!occrsh!uokmax!blknowle ARPA: blknowle@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu
SNAIL: 1013 Mobile circle
Norman, OK 73071
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Philosophy of Mohandas K. Ghandi: "Until one takes the training wheels off of
one's bicycle, one never know if one can succeed without them.
It is time we took the training wheels off of our bicycle."
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Disclaimer: (The above opinions are my own. They have nothing to do with the
Univeristy of Oklahoma nor intelligance of any sort. :-)darin@Apple.COM (Darin Adler) (04/27/88)
In article <1226@uokmax.UUCP> blknowle@uokmax.UUCP (Bradford L Knowles) writes: > NoQuiche? > Where does one acquire this *MAGICAL* item/program/resource/whatever? > How does one convince ResEdit to use it? I wrote NoQuiche, in the early days of the Mac Plus and of INITs. The original version did a number of questionable things. For example it permanently enabled the ROM resources! This caused lots of problems with lots of programs. What NoQuiche did that is relevant to ResEdit is that it replaced any calls to DrawDialog with UpdtDialog, passing the visRgn of the dialog's port as the region to update. This causes Standard File to malfunction, but speeds up ResEdit TMPL resource editors. This same effect could be achieved by patching ResEdit directly. If people are interested, I can post the newer, wimpy version of NoQuiche (now called Quiche) source to comp.sources.mac. -- Darin Adler AppleLink:Adler4 UUCP: {sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual}!apple!darin CSNET: darin@Apple.com
lazarus@BOSCO.BERKELEY.EDU (04/30/88)
In article <23728@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU# oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes:
#Once again, I'll explain the point many people miss: if you enter resedit,
#with a PICT on your clipboard, open a file and hit 'paste' ResEdit pastes
#the pict into the file. Same with TEXT. If you select one PICT or TEXT and
#copy it to the clipboard in resEdit, then it will still be on the
#clipboard when you leave resedit. In resedit sub-editors like the ICON or
#CURSor editor will cut and pate PICTs, if you use the shift key while you
#mousedown and drag, to sweep out a destination rectangle.
All true, and furthermore the original ScrapBook DA can be used
to simplify multiple text/picture pasting.
andy