Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!public!eeh From: eeh@public.BTR.COM (Eduardo E. Horvath eeh@btr.com) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: ResEdit for the Amiga? Message-ID: <2971@public.BTR.COM> Date: 7 Jun 91 03:41:30 GMT References: Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM Lines: 59 In article stevek@amiglynx.UUCP (Steve K) writes: >Would it be possible to construct a ResEdit (MAC) type program for the Amiga? [...] Then, In article mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes: >Actually, I've been discussing somethine like this with a friend of >mine who programs X-Windows.... [...] >So what I have been thinking is that you sould make a ResEdit type program that >works with an external file. The application program would use the resources Let's not. I have recently been forced to suffer through Motif development, and find this entire descussion extremely nauseating. Motif currently supports two highly involved and painfully slow methods to make alterations to programs without changing the executable. The first is the resource file. Each X toolkit program reads up to a half dozen different text files containing references to UI objects' (windows, buttons, sliders, etc.) properties (color, size, position, text strings, etc.) This means that attempting to execute a program is *slow*. Any attribute of any UI object could be set by C code or in a resource file. This means that there is an awful lot of code executing that is unnecessary, very seldom makes its presence felt, but chews up gobs of MIPS. Then there is the UIL file. UIL (User Interface Language) was designed to simplify the building of user interfaces by describing the widgets as a single data structure, rather than building them up, one at a time. Because of the miserable "object-oriented" design of the X intrinsics toolkit, each widget requires a complex tag-based data structure and an extremely awkward function call to create in C. While UIL makes the design of windows and buttons simpler, a reasonably sized UID file (a compiled UIL file) can take over a minute to be loaded by an aplication. The nice thing about the Amiga is that it is lean and mean. The OS takes up very little space compared to anything else with a GUI, and although your average $50,000 20MIPS machine has a much larger number crunching ability than an Amiga 500, it is much less responsive to input. If you want to put up with waiting 60 seconds to load a program's UI, why not switch to one of these other machines? To answer the question of how resource editing could be handled on an Amiga, to start with PowerWindows could use an update. I am not particularly happy with its overemphasis on the menu as the end-all in man-machine interfaces. Secondly, debug information could be used, or some new hunk could be added, that points at and describes the data structures used in creating the UI. There could be a little program that allows the user to go in and modify those values in the actual executable. Yes, you could totally trash the program, but since when has AmigaDOS prevented you from shooting your own foot off? 8^) -- ========================================================================= Eduardo Horvath eeh@btr.com ..!{decwrl,mips,fernwood}!btr!eeh "Trust me, I am cognizant of what I am doing." - Hammeroid