Re: Facespan 3.5.1: Is it good, or bad?
Re: Facespan 3.5.1: Is it good, or bad?
- Subject: Re: Facespan 3.5.1: Is it good, or bad?
- From: David Lloyd <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:28:51 +1100
Why is there this Facespan versus Dialog Director thing?
Comparing Facespan to Dialog Director is like comparing Simpletext to Excel,
they are two different tools for different purposes: Facespan is for
creating stand-alone applications (written in AppleScript) and Dialog
Director is for creating a faceplate to an AppleScript. Plus, you cannot
create a stand-alone (all the dialogs, menus, etc) with DD.
Dialog Director is free, while Facespan costs around $150 (I think).
Facespan is moving to OSX, who know what DD is doing...
David Blanche said:
>
Come on now, how hard is it to edit a resource in ResEdit or Resorcerer?
>
Edit the resource, drop the resource file onto Dialog Dumper, done deal.
This is fine for those scripters who are comfortable with ResEdit, etc.
Also, you forgot to mention the Resource Utilities osax, and Programmers
Tool osax (and you want version 1.0a10 for OS9 - if you can find it)
Also, Resedit doesn't readily do radio groups, popups, list boxes and
progress bars either - unless you have to go in and edit the script for
this...
>
I've seen some of the scripts FaceSpan generates, and they aren't pretty!
>
At least using DialogDirector doesn't clutter up your source. I'd take
>
DialogDirector over that any day.
Huh? This has nothing to do with the applications, it has everything to do
with the user of the application. (likewise you don't throw Photoshop at
someone and auto-expect wonderful imagery)
Cris:
>
Facespan can't handle scripts larger than 32 KB. Very bad, especially
>
for a tool which is meant to build applications.
Well actually you can, but you need to break themup into 32k or less pieces.
It can be good organisational practise to do this, too.
Also, the Facespan manual recommends that you move as much of the script out
of the application script and into the window items (buttons, etc), because
it helps to launch faster. (I have a Facespan application that is almost
500k in size.)
>
9 Lasso selecting and moving items in a tab corrupts the items visibility
>
in the tab's.
This *is* a nuiscance - whenn you lasso select window items you pick up
invisible items too. The tab panel's job is switching the visibility of
items on and off.
For what it's worth Facespan has more bugs than I need, but once you learn
what it *can't* do then it is all more the easier. There was once a Facespan
bug-list around, which is a bit dated now, which needs to be resurrected or
begun again.
and Harry Brindley said:
>
It is much _easier_ to edit your client's GUI changes in FaceSpan.
>
If you can get it right first time, Dialog Director can look as good
>
but with much more effort. I generally want to spend my time
>
coding the guts of my scripts, not on making up its pretty face.
I suppose what the world needs is a standalone wysiwyg GUI editor for Dialog
Director where ResEdit, Resource Utilities, and Programmers Tool is *not*
required, is fully compatible with OS's 7.5 up to 9.1 and can readily do
radio groups, popups, list boxes and progress bars too, handles all the
dialog styles including fonts - with neat stuff like snap to grid and nudge
- and all exporting to a script file (or even launching in your favorite
editor) without a single keystroke of AppleScript coding...
David Lloyd
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