America Online APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG Tuesday, January 14, 1992 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Topic: FOUNDATION Forum Leader: Gary Jacobson (AFL GaryJ) AFL GaryJ Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum! Tonight, we are pleased AFL GaryJ to have as our special guests, the development team from Lunar Productions... AFL GaryJ here to introduce FOUNDATION, a new full featured Apple IIGS Resource Tool. AFL GaryJ After an introduction here, we'll be opening up the floor to your questions and AFL GaryJ comments. When we do that, we'll be using forum PROTOCOL, so if you AFL GaryJ have a question, type a "?" on a line by itself, and if you have a comment AFL GaryJ on the current topic, type a "!" on a line by itself. AFL GaryJ Marc, Mark, and Jim, could you (one of you or each of you) introduce yourselves, AFL GaryJ and tell us a little bit about Foundation? AFC DYAJim (And maybe what part you wrote :) AFL GaryJ Yeah, that too :) ADVG Marc Hi... I'm Marc Wolfgram, the ringleader of this motly crew... My tasks were primarilly centered on ADVG Marc the definition of the project, and I've done most of the coding on the Foundation Shell itself. ADVG Marc Mark: GA ADVG Mark2 I'm Mark Collins... and among my tasks have been working with the dependency structure stuff... ADVG Mark2 editors, liasion with Apple Developer Group and whatever Marc tells me to do.... B-) ADVG Mark2 Jim- GA ADVG Jim1 Hi, I'm Jim Murphy. I've designed and coded HexEdit, our fully-featured hex... ADVG Jim1 and ASCII editor. I've also done ScriptEdit, our scriptable "generic" editor. AFL GaryJ Marc, can you tell us what Foundation is all about? ADVG Marc Foundation is a resource tool, not like anything currently available. Some of its ADVG Marc features include the ability to edit up to 4 files at the same time, 320 mode support, the ability to ADVG Marc extend it by adding Resource Editor Moudules (a developer kit will [hopefully] find its way on the ADVG Marc soon to be released 6.0 Golden Master CD)... Not to mention the power that ScriptEdit gives you in ADVG Marc working with custom resources or those that don't have native REMs yet... what have I left out Mark? AFL GaryJ Thanks. From what I've seen of the product, I've been really impressed. ADVG Mark2 Well, when we started out on the project, we took a good hard look at what was out there on the GS... ADVG Mark2 and that other machine Apple builds, and picked apart strong points and weaknesses... ADVG Mark2 Then we started from scratch. Among the other features you won't find anywhere else will be things... ADVG Mark2 like 'intellegent' cut/copy/paste & delete, which will let you select an item with dependent resources ADVG Mark2 like say a window, and have your action optionally handle all of those dependents as well. ADVG Mark2 With Foundation, you can also select a Pascal String, for example, and find its 'Parent', and ADVG Mark2 C/C/P or delete the whole structure as well. (You will especially like this when copying between... ADVG Mark2 files... ADVG Mark2 One of the KEY factors that went into the design of Foundation is safety- you don't want a mistake to ADVG Mark2 blow up your system on you... or your application, ADVG Mark2 or whatever... With Foundation, you are always working on a copy of your file until you actually ADVG Mark2 save it. (ResEDIT goes gets a bit dicey here). Also, the resource and File I/O that Marc built in ADVG Mark2 goes out of its way to ensure safe working (anyone with experience in working with the GS resource ADVG Mark2 manager knows how iffy this can be with multiple files!) GA AFL GaryJ Ok, let's move on to some questions here. We'll take the question from Jim. AFC DYAJim How does it represent the resources your're editing? Like RezEdit or like AFC DYAJim Genesys or in your own way? AFC DYAJim RezEdit is kinda nifty, but hard to deal with ADVG Mark2 The answer is... yes... and no... ADVG Mark2 The native system provides a set of lists containing the resID of the item with its name if it has one ADVG Mark2 However, a REM or Resource Editor Module can provide an optional alternate method of selection. ADVG Mark2 For example, in the icon editor, a very ResEdit looking window is available. However, if you don't ADVG Mark2 want it... simply turn the option off in preferences. ADVG Marc When you open a file you are presented with a "file" window, showing the active resource types... ADVG Marc You can open as many sub or "type" windows, to display the individual resource.. all list based ADVG Marc however the ability exists for to have a native selector display things in amore natural way... ADVG Marc like the one attached to the Icon editor... it displays a window of icons... like IconEd :) GA AFC DYAJim cool. ADVG Marc It beats trying to remember what item 0001028F looks like :) GA AFL GaryJ Thanks. Lets let QuackDuck ask his question now. GA Quackduck QuackDuck How does FOUNDATION compare to Genesys? ADVG Marc Most of you know that I wrote the Genesys shell (RIP)... My worse fear was being accused of doing a ADVG Marc Genesys Ripoff... Foundation started on a clean sheet of paper from day one, and has remaind that ADVG Marc way through its entire development... Once you see the developer kit, you'll have to agree. There was ADVG Marc a lot of thought put into making Foundation easy to extend... including an editor interface that ADVG Marc treats an editor almost like a super-DA... 12 entry points, 2 call back vectors for the 37 shell- ADVG Marc supported functions (no messing with the resource manager directly) And VERY Fast startup and... ADVG Marc operation... dynamic name assignment... I can go on... GA ADVG Mark2 A few basic comparisons... ADVG Mark2 In the time it takes Genesys to start and allow you to load a file...] ADVG Mark2 You would be well into an editing session with three files on the desktop... ADVG Mark2 Foundation supports WYSIWYG editing, Scripted editing (Jim will talk about this) and... ADVG Mark2 and Byte Level HexEditing. Genesys only edits resources that it has specific editors for. ADVG Mark2 Foundation can edit ANY resource. AFL GaryJ Thanks. Joe Wankerl has the next question. GA, Joe JWankerl Do you see Foundation as the end-all, be-all resource utility for DEVELOPERS? JWankerl Why and/or why not? (Don't you hate those kind of questions? ;-) GA ADVG Marc Hopefully :) Foundation will be 3 almost distinct products... Foundation I will be targeted at the ADVG Marc end user market, allowing safe editing of things like Finder rBundle resources, Icons, Menus and such. ADVG Marc Non-destructive! Foundation II (the current shell) is a developers tool, allowing creation and more ADVG Marc powerfull editing of any resource... Foundation II will include direct access to tools like REZ and ADVG Marc DeRez... GA JWankerl What's the 3rd product? :-) ADVG Mark2 The last entry should have been Foundation III... JWankerl Oh okay. I'm done. Next. AFL GaryJ Thanks, Mark/Marc :) GNO Tim has the next question. GA Tim GNO Tim I have two questions: 1) When will we be able to buy Foundation? GNO Tim 2) What control does the user have over allocating resource numbers, I never GNO Tim liked how Design Master dealt with Menu ID's and the like. GA ADVG Mark2 When... depends on what level you are looking for... ADVG Mark2 We will be GIVING AWAY (can you believe it!!!) a version of Foundation RSN... GNO Tim When will the First Foundation be available? ADVG Mark2 RSN = When the System 6.0 Golden Master comes out. This will be part of the developers kit. ADVG Marc We're aiming at KansasFest in July. The Developer Kit will be on the 6.0 CD coming real soon. ADVG Mark2 As for the product we will be marketing... Release date = KansasFest 92. James S WI Price? ADVG Marc (Do we have our stories straight or what :) GA ADVG Mark2 Now, you might well ask... what would we want to buy if you're giving it away for free? ADVG Mark2 Well, we fully expect ALL GOOD APPLE IIGS users to be willing to fork over the $50 - $75 for the... ADVG Mark2 complete product, with detailed manual, a bevy of native editors, and other goodies. The freebie tha ADVG Mark2 comes with the developers kit is a partial shell with only (only seems an understatement here) the ADVG Mark2 Hex/ScriptEdit modules, along with interfaces, tools and a VERY LONG doc explaining how to WRITE ADVG Mark2 YOUR OWN EDITORS! It is our hope that we will be able to get others to write their own editors as ADVG Mark2 well, so that we will have a Very complete suite of power tools available for working with ADVG Mark2 GS resources. If you're good with a certain kind of resource/data... give it a shot! GA ADVG Marc Just t clarify a point... anyone can write Foundation editors, and can do so either independently ADVG Marc or through som collaboration with us... just let us know what you're interested in... Mike Nuzzi has ADVG Marc recently started working on a rSoundSample editor. GA AFL GaryJ Thanks. Let's move on to QuackDuck's question. GA, Quack QuackDuck How about MAC Resources? Will it handle Mac-HFS Resources at all? Porting? huh? ADVG Mark2 Well, oddly enough we encountered that question just yesterday.... AFL GaryJ No need to port, with 6.0 AFC DYAJim I think port as in port to GS applications, Gary. JWankerl (I think Port = convert from Mac resource to IIGS resource) ADVG Mark2 Actually, Gary, there is... Try and use a Mac icon in a GS App... (in fact, try and get to it!) AFL GaryJ (Oh... I was thinking "port" as going from HFS disk to ProDOS :) QuackDuck yes ADVG Mark2 However, it may be possible in Foundation (the File IO is strong enough, thanks Marc!)... though ADVG Mark2 certainly not for version 1.0... (enough to finish yet to work with GS resources!!! B-) GA AFC DYAJim (I particularly like the way Resource Spy handles mac resources, the only AFC DYAJim drawback is that it won't load them directly - you have to somehow get the AFC DYAJim rfork into a binary file..) ADVG Mark2 So do we, Jim... So do we... B-) GA James S WI Can you tell us more about the script editor? How about an example of a script James S WI at "source" level. ADVG Jim1 Well...interesting question. The script language currently is like a cross of ADVG Jim1 rez and C. There will be two methods to create a script in the final version; ADVG Jim1 textually via a true script, or graphically via a dialog box mechanism. Both ADVG Jim1 generate a tokenized form of output that ScriptEdit uses to edit the actual ADVG Jim1 resource with. You can use either method to create your own 'script'. AFL GaryJ Thanks, Jim. Any follow up, James? James S WI Sounds GREAT! GA AFL GaryJ Mike (Nuzz), you wanted to make a comment earlier, do you still want AFL GaryJ to do that (I skipped over you). AFL GaryJ Any other questions about Foundation this evening? Nuzz I just wanted to say that I have both Nuzz resource editors avaialable, and don't expect use them too often when Nuzz Foundation is out James S WI Where was it years ago? It could have saved the GS. Mabe it is not too late. AFL GaryJ Ah... a testimonial :) AFA Parik i like the name. AFL GaryJ It sounds (and looks) like a great product. Any last questions? BCS Frank Is there an online support area for Foundation? ADVG Marc Thanks, Parik... We've given appropriate credit to Mr. Asimov. Frank... not yet, but it will be ADVG Marc pursued. AFL GaryJ We are currently discussing the "Online support" angle. ADVG Marc The Foundation Developer Kit will be available in the ADV Library after 6.0 is released. GNO Tim How are the resource numbers allocated? ADVG Mark2 Tim... there are several methods of assigning a resource number. ADVG Mark2 You can assign your own number as you go on... (but the shell DOES reserve the right to override you ADVG Mark2 if you use a duplicate ID... or you can have the system choose one for you. GA BCS Frank Looking forward to both the kit and 6.0. :) ADVG Marc There will be an option in a later incarnation to set a preference on how resource ID's ar assigned. ADVG Marc Sequentially from the last number or Sequentially, fill in missing numbers, starting at $00000001 AFC DYAJim That sounds like what I would like :) AFL GaryJ Ok, I'd like to thank Marc, Mark, and Jim for coming this evening. This ends our AFL GaryJ official chat time. All of you are welcome to stick around afterward and