Douglas Wagner wrote:
> 1 I've not been able to find a way to access "cicn" or "icon" resources
> copied into a stack using ResEdit.
Why use resources? Resources are limited to Mac OS, are are notoriously
slow, and extremely limited in terms of size, color depth, etc. Not even
OS X uses them anymore. Do these images necessarily have to remain
resources?
If you have icon resources you want to use in Rev, you might consider
running that res file through Graphic Converter
<http://lemkesoft.com/gcdownload_us.html>, which can convert all those to
GIFs or PNGs in a single step. There are may ways to convert them, but GC
is so darned convenient it's hard not to use it for batch work like this.
Once they're image files you can import them into Rev and work with them
quickly and easily across all platforms. There may be an external out there
which will let you work with cicns directly, but since Rev is an inherently
multi-platform tool there would be little value in having them add this
capability to the program itself.
> Is Revolution a new sort of game, I wonder? One is invited to pay 300 dollars
> and then spends a year or so trying to guess how it works.
Yes, developing software requires some effort. The cool thing about Rev is
that the effort required for making multi-platform applications is probably
something like 0.01% of what would be required using just about any other
system.
Another cool thing about Rev is the documentation. Jeanne DeVoto did a
kick-ass job on that, fleshing out the language guide to a level not even
Macromedia attempts with Lingo (they leave that level of detail for
third-party authors, one more thing to buy after shelling out for two copies
of the same product just to get cross-platform deployment <g>). Reading
the Language Guide once through will pay for itself many times over, letting
you know what's available and giving you a solid feel for the style of the
language. Her end-to-end examples crafted for nearly every token are a
godsend.
In my experience as a user and a trainer, the learning curve often goes
something like this:
Two days: "Omigawd, the potential is incredible!
If only I knew how to use it all..."
Two weeks: "After reading the language guide and trying some
things out, I'm able to do truly productive work."
One month: "Now I can do productive work efficiently."
Three months: "With the flexibility of the language and the handy
tools in Rev, I'm seeing slightly greater productivity
than in my formerly-favorite tool I'd used for years."
Six months: "I love this thing."
One year: "I love this thing like no other."
Of course, along the way there will be headaches, but if your experience is
like mine most of those come from the need to understand and work with the
differences between multiple operating systems. As a truly
platform-independent tool, Rev sometimes does things that may seem
counter-intuitive to a person with strong experience in just one OS, but as
your experience with other OSes grows you'll find it all starts to make good
sense as you go along.
And then there's the Ultimate Game, mastering the art of programming itself.
Regardless of the language and development system, this is a life-long
pursuit, always something new to learn, a new way to structure code, a
better algorithm, stronger error handling, smoother user interfaces, etc.
The more I learn about programming, the more I realize how much there is
left to learn. :)
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
_____________________________________________________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com
Tel: 323-225-3717 ICQ#60248349 Fax: 323-225-0716
