ResEDgar
a functional GUI string resource editor


This is my first functional BeGUI based program!

Getting Started
Note:  Two new directories full of preference data will be created by this application. They will be found in /boot/home/config/settings, one is called _LP_x-EFM5.ResEDgar, the other _LP_x-EFM5.BeGUIPref. If you get your preferences totally unacceptably messed up, simply quit the application, delete these files and start the application up again. The default preferences will be restored.

From the window, go to the "APP" menu and select "Preferences...". This will open a new window for the main preference panel. A button labeled "Font..." opens up a font preference panel--try this out to see how the application is entirely font sensitive. You may set the font's family and style, set it's size (using the "Bigger" and "Smaller" buttons or the floating point entry gadget), and even choose whether or not to anti-alias your font. You might have noticed a window pop up in the background with the alphabet and digits--this is just so you can see how your font choices will look. A checkbox gadget is provided to turn this display on or off. Of course, the display window is mainly hidden, so drag it out so it is in plain sight, then, from now on, when you run any BeGUI application it will always know where you like the window and will put it there automatically. This feature is available on all application and BeGUI windows.

There are fourteen buttons which allow you to customize the appearance of the primary BeOS controls. The only Be Interface Kit controls not present here is the Tab--the Tab stuff escapes me completely, as I have not figured out how to make them work at all! Each button opens a new window with a control panel specific to the gadget in question. Each gadget is represented by a demonstration item so you may watch the results of your actions in real time.

Playing with colors is interesting and you may learn a lot about the way controls are created just by changing a color (View, High, or Low) and watching how it affects the item. Some Item's colors are based upon the "Underlying View"'s colors, so play with it as well. You can easily make things unreadable with color changes! See the note above about restoring the defaults, when all else fails! There are two checkboxes which allow you to customize the control panels themselves. By default, both standard BeOS BColorControls and roColour (check out: http://www.rodesign.com) color drops are supported. There is a custom roColour color well which is sized according to the font size, you may drop roColours on them to affect color changes. You may have either or both gadgets active at any time.

Other Menu Items
There are a few other menu items available--a "Close Window" item (which performs the same function as the window's close gadget or the keyboard shortcut alt-w), and a "Quit" item which terminates the application (after a verification requester). All windows also should have an "About" item which opens a BAlert giving details about the application and specific hints about what is going on in this window.

Using ResEDgar
ResEDgar is used to edit the string resources of any file. libBeGUI.so has string resources which you may edit, ResEDgar itself has string resources you may edit. Use the menu or button to load a file (if it has no string resources, ResEDgar will let you know). The original string is printed on the left and an edit text box is to the right (it will start with the same original text in the text box). Edit this text as you see fit. Any decent application will respect your choices and craft itself to fit your language and expressions.

Some string resources will consist of more than one line. To keep things simple, they are truncated on the lefthand side, but may be scrolled through in the text editing box. I would strongly suggest that any one line strings be kept as one line strings. Multi-line strings may have more or fewer lines, in most cases.

When you are happy with all your choices, select save from the menu (or the title window's button), the next time you run that file your changes will appear.

I have included a small application called Resourceful which has a couple of useless strings as resources. When run from a Terminal, it will print out one of those resource strings. As shipped, the string is simply my name. Use ResEDgar to load this application and change my name to yours. Run the application from a Terminal and see your name printed out instead of mine!



ResEDgar version 1.1.0
edgar@harbornet.com
emusgrov@linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us
Last modified 22 March, 1999.
ResEDgar is no longer copyright, no rights are reserved.
BeGUI is a public domain project from Ed Musgrove. The source is available on BeWare or from the author (an alternate site is also available:
Ed Musgrove's BeOS Software Releases).