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http://www.macnn.com/articles/01/05/17/resource.and/

Resource and Data file editor for OS X

updated 08:55 pm EDT, Thu May 17, 2001

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Resorcerer 2.4, described as the "first" OS X resource and data file editor, offers new support for data-fork-based resource files; large Mac OS X icons; hex, binary, and unicode displays of very large data files; object-model scriptability; new integrated developer utility tools; and an interface overhaul.

by MacNN Staff

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05/17, 10:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Expensive!!!!

$256?!?!?!?!??? F*ck that! No resource editor is worth that!! You've shot yourselves in the foot, Mathemaethetics. Very few people will buy your product at that price.

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05/17, 10:26pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
It may be expensive

But I simply wouldn't use anything else to do any development. Just try edit a medium size aete resource. It's definitely not for hobbist who wants to make a new icon or change a menu shortcut though.

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05/17, 10:41pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Not the first...

On a technicality... ResKnife was of the first Resuorce Editor for OS X, way back in DP4 days... It ain't perfect, but it beat Resourcer, and its free and open source. Check it out @ versiontracker.com...

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05/17, 11:39pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Uh Oh!

Better grab this quick before Apple's legal firm sees this!

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05/17, 11:42pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
What about Resedit?

I'm not quite sure how resources work in OS X, but is there a forthcoming resedit as well?

ResKnife looks cool. that dude's been working on it forever.

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05/18, 12:13am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Geez...

...why is it that those who don't write actual code are always the first to give their (negative) opinion? The price is high but the tool is worth it unless you write code that don't sell. Get a life!

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05/18, 12:59am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Expensive?

Resorcerer may be $256 but it is not expensive. If you make your living by writing code on the Mac, this utility pays for itself over and over and over. The only utility that is pays for itself faster is CodeWarrior. Don't like it? Don't buy it. But if you are a professional, you need professional tools.

And Resedit is an Apple legacy tool, that will not be updated for Mac OS X (in fact it hasn't been updated in so long that it is virtually useless for anybody that needs a real resource editor).

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05/18, 01:15am | report spam | close Reply | delete
COOL! But expensive

I'm glad it's out, but damn it's too expensive. As a freeware programmer, I can't afford it, and I don't want to start charging.

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05/18, 02:00am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Classic Price Gouging

This is classic.

There is essentially *no* real resource file editor for Mac OS X, so they have the market locked into THEIR tool at whatever price they want to charge.

If it really was so indispensible they would charge less, sell many more copies and get "rich" or a return on their investment that way like every other company.

Boy, its amazing how few people realize that in the U.S. you live in a market economy. The *market* determines products and services and prices. If it doesn't sell, it dies and goes away and the price goes up before then. If it sells well it gets updated/changed frequently and prices tend to drop.

When you are the ONLY source, you can charge any price you want. Witness Microsoft charging for the inclusion of Windoze OS whether or not the PeeCee maker includes it on their products.

Whee! So much fun when the sheep are so clueless!

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05/18, 02:26am | report spam | close Reply | delete
It is amazing...

Graphic Designers that know their stuff don't settle for MS Publisher (roughly $100), rather they spend over $500 for PhotoShop, over $300 for Illustrator/Frehand and over $600 for Quirk. So $256 for a utilitiy for a programmer is not outlandish. It is a tool for serious developers, not hobbyists.

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05/18, 03:15am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Gouging

If you don't understand the pun implicit in the price tag, you don't need this program. Simple as that.

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05/18, 03:46am | report spam | close Reply | delete
What do Apple use?

In creating .rsrc files files for their apps, I wonder what tool Apple themselves use?

Surely it couldn't be ResEdit 2.1.3 then Snoop to convert a resource for to a data fork (which is what I do)...!

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05/18, 06:05am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Heh

No, actually most Apple engineers use Resourcer, just like every other serious developer for the Mac platform. Resourcer works great, and is very worth $256. This exact same discussion is going on at versiontracker. If you can't afford this product, you don't need it.

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05/18, 08:02am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Resourcer Rocks

I took advantage of the $2^7 intro pricing a few years back, and I still don't regret it.... I was already using, um, a non-legit version of Resourcer, and since it was so valuable, I had no problem with the 2^7 bucks. And if I had to, the 2^8 bucks would've been worth it.

This is a professional tool, folks. The people who buy this are a) professional Mac developers b) serious home developers c) students who get the student discount and are serious (i think its 2^6 bucks).

I'm just happy there is a an update... it's been a while since the last :)

dennis

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05/18, 08:04am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Gouging?

All your resource fork are belong to us

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05/18, 08:44am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Not Gouging

Resourceror has always been $256, he's not gouging the public. Bear in mind, this is one of the first pro-level programs to get ported for OS X. That should be what you should be judging: his dedication to the Mac platform.

And as Resourceror is a pro-level utility, this should help accelerate the development of some of those other pro-level utilities. While "Carbon"-izing a program may be a relatively routine process -- according to Apple -- writing a Unix-native application is not, for someone used to writing for a proprietary OS such as the MacOS. This is a whole paradigm shift for MacOS programmers, and there is a learning curve.

Remember, the quick-fix is to port to Carbon. But if you really want to do it right for the long-haul, you want to go native OS X. We may be impatient for Adobe, Corel, Quark and Wacom to "get their act together," please remember they are trying to get it right for us. Hence all the delays in ALL major applications is getting their OS X applications out.

Resourceror is for the real Pros, not for hackers like me. :)

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05/18, 08:50am | report spam | close Reply | delete
I get it...!

...the pun implicit to the price tag that is. $64, $128, and $256 are like increments of RAM modules. But I wonder if that $256 pricetag would be a little lower without the implicit pun.

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05/18, 09:23am | report spam | close Reply | delete
LOL@

�If you don't understand the pun implicit in the price tag, you don't need this program. Simple as that.�

How true. And it's not just RAM modules...

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05/18, 09:27am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Not Gouging

Remember, the quick-fix is to port to Carbon. But if you
really want to do it right for the long-haul, you want to go
native OS X.

Repeat this to yourself 100 times:
"Carbon *is* Native OS X...Carbon *is* Native OS X...Carbon *is* Native OS X..."

The only difference between Carbon and Cocoa apps is on the development side (ie, Cocoa is *way* easier). The finished product is virtually identical. Granted, there are a few features of the Cocoa API that aren't out there for the Carbon API yet, but they're both still native to OS X. From a user standpoint, there's no inherent advantage to using Cocoa vs. Carbon.

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05/18, 10:30am | report spam | close Reply | delete
A small rant

For those of you who are trashing it because it's $256 dollars, that's because Resourcer is sooo much more powerful then ResEdit it's unbelieveable. It makes ResEdit look like a kid's toy. It seriously is one of the most awesome and powerful tools ever released for the Macintosh. The reason it costs $256 is because it's priced with professional programmers in mind. It doesn't exactly make me happy either, but there you go. CodeWarrior costs $500 dollars and people don't complain, even though you can get a free substitute from Apple's Website (MPW/Project Builder). Photoshop costs $600 and nobody complains even though you can download many utilities that do similar things for less/free (GraphicCoverter, the Gimp, TIFFany, etc.). Personally, I think Microsoft Office is overexpensive... $300-500 bucks for friggin' word processor/spreadsheet/PIM/presentation software? I can get similar functionality in AppleWorks 6 and Palm Desktop which costs a total of around $100! So don't go running around trashing it just because it's expensive... for people who need it, it would be worth thousands.

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05/18, 11:38am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Carbon is native... BZZZT

Hold down your mouse button in (admittedly some) Carbon apps. The GUI stops, just like OS9. Some Carbon apps will continue to work, just not update their GUI. Not so Cocoa.

Carbon is still cooperatively threaded. It's a little packet of Classic nastiness being treated as a single thread. Any app can preempt a Carbon app or any other, but internally, it isn't preemptive. Carbon is NOT native, it's just wrapped in something that is. Hopefully it will be eventually, but every lazy Classic developer who wanted their old app to run on X with a minimum of every will have to update their app for every API change.

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05/18, 12:19pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Carbon App is native

Holding down the mouse down and the GUI stops has more to do with the particular way that the app is Carbonized. If an app is carbonized with no update to the way events are handled, it'll stop the GUI of the app. However, if it's done right (use Carbon Events, etc.), there is no reason the GUI should be stop, unless it is designed to be so.

On the note about preemptiveness. In general, preempting only happens between apps. So there is really no easy way for a user to determine whether preemptive threads are used within an app or not. Preemptive threads are available to Carbon, as well as OS 9, it's just that it is a lot more useful on Carbon/OS X than on 9.

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05/18, 06:28pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
How much???

It's blooody to expensive, and that go for any software which cost over $100.
Software these days should be treated as 21st century books and pricing to be regulated.
That mean no software to be put for sale until passes some kind of test.
We are paying to much to find later that software is full of bugs and sold without any kind of waranty.
You can not, by low , sell any other product without waranty.
There is no wander of 40 richest people in the world 22 do software only (starting with B.Gates then guy from Sun systems...etc). They are trading in unregulated market, selling what ever they want (like not ready and bugy software) for price they want and we just go for it.

I know this is not much connected with this topic but I have let out or I will explode.

c.

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05/18, 10:21pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Mac dev tools are cheap

Quit bitching about how expensive Resorcerer is. It's cheap. $256 is nothing in comparison to the time it saves compared to other alternatives. Same goes for all the other Mac developer tools. They are high quality and extremely reasonably priced. If you think they are too expensive, then you are clearly not a developer that needs them. Take a look at dev tools for embedded systems, or tools for designing hardware. The software is c*** and costs many thousands of dollars. But they are still worth the money when compared to the alternative.

If you think it's too expensive, then shut up and don't buy it. The dev tool companies don't care about you.

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05/19, 04:21am | report spam | close Reply | delete
basic editor needed

We do need a cheapy ResEdit-like tool though.

By the way, how much does MS charge for Visual Basic? Isn't it something like $512? Pretty soon it may be $128 lease/year. Pick your 2^n.

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05/19, 07:11am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Classic Price Gouging

Someone wrote:

(*snip*)

There is essentially *no* real resource file editor for Mac OS X, so they have the market locked into THEIR tool at whatever price they want to charge.

(*snip*)

Resorcerer has been around for a good long time ... and it's been $256 or thereabouts for as long as I can remember.

--gdw

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05/19, 07:17am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: I Get It

Someone wrote:

...the pun implicit to the price tag that is. $64, $128, and $256 are like increments of RAM modules. But I wonder if that $256 pricetag would be a little lower without the implicit pun.

Um ... no. It's not based on RAM increments, exactly; rather, it's based on the same thing RAM increments are based on -- mainly powers of two.

--gdw

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05/19, 01:34pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
working on it forever

I've been working on ResKnife since early 1998. It has been through many complete re-writes, and I use it to learn about the MacOS Toolbox (eg how to draw in a window, CFM Manager, nav services, carbon events etc.)

It probably averages around two hours /week over it's lifespan, but I have hardly touched it since September and the start of my second year at university.

Nicholas Shanks
--

ResKnife 0.4b2 is available from here:
http://nickshanks.com/mac/noframes/resknife.html

nick goes off to try and get his template editor to save things....

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05/20, 04:39pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: I get it

...the pun implicit to the price tag that is. $64, $128, and $256 are like increments of RAM modules [...]

Um ... no. It's not based on RAM increments, exactly; rather, it's based on the same thing RAM increments are based on -- mainly powers of two.

Um, no, that's not it either. What you say is correct, but it still misses the pun.
(Hint: when is $256 != 0x256?)

MacNN.com Reader
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Joined: Jul 2001

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10/17, 09:50am | report spam | close Reply |
Oldschool...

Oldschool Mac developers who've been paying through the nose for basic tools for getting on for 20 years now are probably used to it. After all they can just pass the costs along to their own customers, because they're Mac users too. If they have to bump their own prices 50% to pay for all the $300 here and $500 there essentials, well, they can. And that'll cover the new G5 and the 21" studio display as well.

The thing is, though, it's not an oldschool Mac world any more. Mac OS has had a transfusion of new blood from UNIX, a new heart and soul. A mammalian forebrain over the r-complex, an OS that thinks, doesn't just react to whatever applications might do. It's no coincidence that Darwin's symbol is a beast in transition between two orders of life.

And that means there's a whole bunch of mammal developers diving into the pool to swim with the old fishes and reptiles.

To a UNIX developer, who's used to having an operating system that comes with all the tools necessary to develop software for it... maybe not premium tools, but enough to get started with, this kind of thing is a shock.

When you jump into the pool and the first thing you meet is a shark trying to sell you a sharkproof suit, well, getting told that it's a professional quality sharkproof suit is little consolation. You have to forgive us: we just thought we were bringing new blood, we didn't expect to be new blood in the water.

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Resource and Data file editor for OS X

updated 08:55 pm EDT, Thu May 17, 2001

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Expensive!!!!

It may be expensive

Not the first...

Uh Oh!

What about Resedit?

Geez...

Expensive?

COOL! But expensive

Classic Price Gouging

It is amazing...

Re: Gouging

What do Apple use?

Heh

Resourcer Rocks

Gouging?

Not Gouging

I get it...!

LOL@

Re: Not Gouging

A small rant

Carbon is native... BZZZT

Carbon App is native

How much???

Mac dev tools are cheap

basic editor needed

Re: Classic Price Gouging

Re: I Get It

working on it forever

Re: I get it

Oldschool...

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