Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!analog!kim
From: kim@analog.UUCP (Kim Helliwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: resource editor gripes
Message-ID: <177@wayne.analog.UUCP>
Date: 23 Apr 88 20:50:26 GMT
Organization: Analog Design Tools Inc., Sunnyvale, CA.
Lines: 43
Keywords: resource editor


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 Helliwell