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From: mayerk@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Kenneth Mayer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Tool tool
Message-ID: <3572@super.upenn.edu>
Date: 5 Mar 88 18:13:09 GMT
References: <365@future.ursa.UUCP> <2660@calmasd.GE.COM>
Sender: news@super.upenn.edu
Reply-To: mayerk@linc.cis.upenn.edu.UUCP (Kenneth Mayer)
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
Lines: 39
Keywords: user interface to ResEdit/RMaker (??)
Summary: Prototyper from SmethersBarnes.

When last we saw our hero, bdd@calmasd.UUCP (Brian Donahue) ...
>saw this over on comp.graphics...
>
>In article [comp.graphics] <365@future.ursa.UUCP> raj@ursa.UUCP () writes:
>>
>textually.  I mean, wouldnt it be easier (and more user-friendly?) to just 
>put up a window, let you drag it around/change its shape/etc to where
>you want it?
>
>I've seen some icon-editors that are somewhat of an improvement over
>ResEdit's "fatbits" one, but are there dialog-editors out there??
>menu-editors??   Has anyone put them all together?

Yes, someone has put it "all" (almost all anyway) together. It's called
Prototyper, published by SmethersBarnes (800-237-3611, $125 list). 
It builds all sorts of windows, buttons, radio *clusters*, checkboxes,
icons, lists, and scroll-bars in a very Apple Desktop Interface way. It will
even write (very mediocre, but not bad for a first pass) Pascal code for you.
(Prototyper now supports Lightspeed, MPW, Turbo, and one other I can't recall.)
This code, when compiled will make a *LAUNCHABLE* APPLICATION that doess
everything that Prototyper did for you in the prototyping environment.

I used it to build prototypes for three applications in one day. I showed the
prototypes to my client the next day, and together, we made changes on
the fly to the user interface that solved several problems. 

There are some shortcomings though. SB neglected to support zoomDocProc windows.
(A small concern, and three lines of code in Pascal to fix.) In addition,
the resource files generated by Prototyper come in 2 formats: RMaker (gawk!) and
a regular file with a resource fork. No Rez format files. Lightspeed does
accept the regular file, so am not too worried about this either.

I am not connected in any way to SmethersBarnes. I am an extremely satisfied
customer.


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Kenneth Mayer			|	Teacher: "Two plus two equals..."
mayerk@eniac.seas.upenn.edu	|	Student: "Four, but what's a two?"