Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!unido!gmdzi!strobl From: strobl@gmdzi.UUCP (Wolfgang Strobl) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: The Mac's resource fork: does Win 3 have one? Message-ID: <2964@gmdzi.UUCP> Date: 2 Jul 90 13:22:00 GMT References: <2322.268f7cca@csc.anu.oz> Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, F. R. Germany Lines: 51 pfr654@csc.anu.oz writes: >But, one thing that strikes me about the Mac, from a software point of >view, is the nice thing known as the resource fork and ResEdit etc. >Apparently (and I have no facts on this, so someone should correct me) win >3 requires lots and lots of disks (I heard 50MB worth) to do the sort of >stuff that ResEdit/Font/DA mover do? >How easy or otherwise can it be to translate a program without the Resource >Fork? >Do any other computer systems use such a method of programming?-- From the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit, Programmer's Learning Guide, Version 2 (sorry, I haven't version 3, yet), quoted without permission: 2.5 Building a Windows Application You build a Windows application by following these steps: 1. Write the WinMain and window functions and place them in C-language or assembly-language source files. 2. Write the menu, dialog box, and other resource descriptions and place them in a resource script file. 3. Use Icon Editor to create the cursors, icons, and bitmaps. 4. Use Dialog Editor to create dialog boxes. 5. Write the module definitions and place them in the module definition file. 6. Compile and link all C-language sources. 7. Compile the resource script file and add it to the executable file. [End of quote] It is possible to repeat step 2, 3, 4 and 7 without repeating the source compilation step (6). The resource compiler used in step 7 compiles all resources (menues, dialog boxes, icons, cursors, bitmaps and private resources) into one binary resource file and adds this to the load module. Translation of a program is normally done without touching the program source code, using different sets of resources and resource scripts. Of course, this feature is available to developers only. But there exists a commercial resource editor, which is able to extract and edit resources contained in the executable file. Is this really that much different from the way resources are handled on the Macintosh? Wolfgang Strobl #include