Re: Facespan 3.5.1: Is it good, or bad, for you?
Re: Facespan 3.5.1: Is it good, or bad, for you?
- Subject: Re: Facespan 3.5.1: Is it good, or bad, for you?
- From: "Mike Miller" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:46:59 -0600
email@hidden (Douglas Wagner) wrote:
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I used Facespan 2.0 briefly some time ago and was disappointed. Now
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I've started using Facespan 3.5 and almost at once, I've started
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running into similar problems. During, what I consider fairly routine
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work, I run into all sorts of odd behaviour.
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1 Some ICN# resources will display in a list box other,
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apparently identical items will not.
Hmm...odd. I haven't had any problems along these lines, but I haven't used these forms very often, and when I have I've used cicns.
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2 Similar problems with bevel buttons.
I haven't used bevel buttons much, sorry.
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3 Tab panels behave oddly, if the tabs are hidden by removing
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the labels. 'Scroll' works without tabs, but an object on layer 5,
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for example, can show up on layers 1 and 5.
Another thing I haven't used much are tab panels, and I've never removed the tab labels. I do remember occasionally having a created object marked for the wrong tabs, but this was something you could fix in the tab links.
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4 Changing window 'forms' seems unreliable in edit mode.
Can you give an example of what you mean? In the strictest FaceSpan sense, windows don't use forms, so I'm confused. I haven't had any problems editing windows in the couple years I've used FS.
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5 I find the application crashes after a while, particularly if
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one makes many changes to the properties of objects.
When I was seriously working on FS stuff (full days of working on one project) I didn't experience this. That was with FS 3.0.1, though.
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6 I understand there are no plans to fix outstanding bugs as
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the company priority is now the OSX port.
Makes sense to me, especially if they're fixing the more important bugs for the ported version. Even if not, making something like FaceSpan OS X compatible can't be easy.
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I don't present this as in any way a definitive test of Facespan.
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Rather, I wonder if others have had the same problems. And more to
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the point, do professional users consider the software worth using?
My employer sells a FaceSpan-based product, as well as distributing a few FS apps with Creator2 and using it internally for testing. I use it to make complicated scripts easier to use, report status for repetitive scripts, and merge a bunch of little scripts with preferences into one button panel. I have a great number of scripts that use either repetitive display dialogs or properties you have to edit that I'd put a FaceSpan front end on if I ever wanted to distribute them (to make it easier for people who do little to no AppleScripting to use those scripts).
I am not currently doing professional scripting, but I do consider FaceSpan worth having in your toolkit if you are doing AppleScript production.
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(I notice very little traffic on the Facespan user list).
Historically, there has been very little traffic on the FS list, which I believe is due to the small number of FaceSpan developers that are out there. AppleScripters are a relatively small group, those that would need an interface building tool are even smaller, and those willing to pay for one are even smaller. I still think it's worth the money if you're doing serious AppleScript work.
Additionally, cris <email@hidden> replied:
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7 Facespan can't handle scripts larger than 32 KB. Very bad, especially
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for a tool which is meant to build applications.
I have only once hit the 32KB limit when writing a FaceSpan application, and I consider that app to be very poorly designed.
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8 You can't use 'property parent' with facespan to workaround the 32 KB
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limit. Must use libraries as childs which leads to more problems (scope).
::shrug:: Never had a need for parent/child script objects. Globally accessable libraries have sufficed for my code reuse needs.
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9 Lasso selecting and moving items in a tab corrupts the items visibility
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in the tab's.
I believe FS resets the links whenever you move a window item while it's on a tab panel; if so, it's probably intended as a feature for when you move a window item onto the tab panel from outside it (or perhaps the item creation and movement routines share the same code?) Anyway, I can see where this is a pain if you're editing tab panels extensively. Perhaps there should be an option to enable or disable automatic tab panel linking of moved or created window items?
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10 The script editor is unbelivable poor, even no drag & drop.
No poorer than the Script Editor, really, though I can see where you might miss your favorite tools. I'm not a fan of either drag and drop text editing or the other script editors, so it has been fine for me.
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I hope the OS X version will be much better. And maybe it is possible at
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some day to use Apples Interface Builder with AppleScript.
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There is currently no alternative (except Dialog Director) to Facespan,
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which is generally bad in my opinion.
I also hope the OS X version is better.
Hope this helps,
Mike Miller
ESG Labs
http://www.esglabs.com/