Easier plug 'porting' via .rsrc

Those with good memories may have heard me advocate this before, but I feel it should be said again and again:

I think it would benefit the entire plug in building and playing community if both the PC and Mac versions of Escape Velocity could read the same plugin file type. To that end, I advocate that the format be .rsrc (data fork, not resource fork).

The format for Apple's resource forks is well documented (hell, I know very little about programming and I was able to write routines to read resource data from a .rsrc data fork using RealBasic 3.0), and when the format is in a data fork vs a resource, the same routines are used to parse the data.

If the PC version and Mac version could both read .rsrc data files, there would be no need to port plugins at all; the plugins would be able to work as-is on both formats.

To try and head off some criticisms:
-Let the mac version still be able to deal with resource forks and let the PC version still be able to deal with .rez files, but only as a legacy function.
-Why use .rsrc for both vs .rez? That is a good question. To port for Mac to PC, if I recall correctly, a .rsrc data file is produced first and then is converted to .rez. Let's eliminate a step.
-Why should the Mac version use .rsrc data forks vs the good old resource fork? Because .rsrc would work on both and, if you want to still use resedit with your .rsrc data fork plugins, you can install the system extension Forker.

Yes, this would necessitate a new plugin editor for Windows, but that is the only down side, I believe (besides new work for Mr. Burch and the folks porting EV to PC).

-STH

I don't see any real benefits. A simple plugin conversion is a reasonable step to take soemthing from mac to PC and back.

I'm all for this - I've thought the same thing myself many times. Unfortunately I think it would be more trouble to implement than Matt cares to take. Plus it would render many existing utilities useless. And I'll also point out that you can't really edit resources in data fork using Forker because all you get is just one big resource, but that's okay because sooner or later we won't be able to run ResEdit on our intel macs anyway.

You do realise that a realse of an intel mac will not retroactively change the chip on your current computer, right?

This post has been edited by NebuchadnezzaR : 29 August 2005 - 05:24 PM

Almost certainly not going to happen. Far far far too much work at this very late stage of Nova's lifecycle.

Dave @ ATMOS

1.0.10 = 1.1.0

It probably would be 1.1.0, actually... or 1.1.1 - what you are suggesting is a significant re-write on how Nova handles its data files and plugin files. Seriously, it's simple enough to convert things, especially once Allume get those bugs in .hqx expansion fixed.

.hqx? Who uses .hqx for plugins?

Just glance at the Addons page sometime, Guy, and I can almost guarantee that at least one plugin on the front page will be in .hqx form. (There's one there now, in any case.) Not to mention all of the plugins that were released in the past in .hqx form. I can make a list, if you like.

.bin archives are also annoying, and there's a few of those floating around too.

NebuchadnezzaR, on Aug 29 2005, 05:18 PM, said:

You do realise that a realse of an intel mac will not retroactively change the chip on your current computer, right?
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I do.

Insomniac, on Aug 29 2005, 11:05 PM, said:

1.0.10 = 1.1.0
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I clicked on this topic to see if that was still unnoticed...

Guy, on Aug 30 2005, 03:37 AM, said:

.hqx? Who uses .hqx for plugins?
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Many people. At least one in ten plugs I've seen have been compressed with .hqx. It used to be even more popular on the EVC/EVO addon pages.

wait... I dont get it. 1.0.10 is a valid version number. If it were in base ten, it wouldnt need period seperators. Its just not going to happen.

pipeline, on Aug 29 2005, 07:09 PM, said:

Almost certainly not going to happen. Far far far too much work at this very late stage of Nova's lifecycle.

Dave @ ATMOS
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Is there any possibility that a future Macintosh version of EV Nova could support .rez plug-ins?

NebuchadnezzaR, on Aug 29 2005, 06:18 PM, said:

You do realise that a realse of an intel mac will not retroactively change the chip on your current computer, right?
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Lies!

Never underestimate the power of Intel to infiltrate the market. spooky music

o.0 Im afraid. Will locking all of my computers in a lead-lined machine steel vault help?

Belthazar, on Aug 30 2005, 12:44 PM, said:

Just glance at the Addons page sometime, Guy, and I can almost guarantee that at least one plugin on the front page will be in .hqx form. (There's one there now, in any case.) Not to mention all of the plugins that were released in the past in .hqx form. I can make a list, if you like.

.bin archives are also annoying, and there's a few of those floating around too.
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Ah yes, I see, but there really isn't any point in hqx-ing files and if it's going to cause problems then why do it? That upload dialog should really be fixed.

David Arthur, on Aug 31 2005, 08:00 AM, said:

Is there any possibility that a future Macintosh version of EV Nova could support .rez plug-ins?
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Also very unlikely, I'm afraid, but more likely than the previous idea.

pipeline, on Aug 31 2005, 07:46 PM, said:

Also very unlikely, I'm afraid, but more likely than the previous idea.
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The idea occurred to me when you said a while back that the two versions might be combined into one multi-target version; it would certainly save a lot of confusion, especially given that the .rez format seems to be more forgiving when it comes to large numbers of resources in a file.

I posted this request to the internal beta list. No response yet.

Insomniac, on Aug 29 2005, 11:05 PM, said:

1.0.10 = 1.1.0

Wrong. Version numbers are not decimal numbers. Look at Apache for heaven's sake; they went up to at least 1.3. 31. The dots are merely separators, not decimal points. The first number indicates complete rewrites, the second major updates, and the third minor updates. A fourth is also used occasionally to indicate very minor updates.

Is it just me or did this post sound too harsh? God, I'm losing it and I don't even know why...

Yes, at first I did think it was decimal but in fact you can put a 10 in a place, though it's best to put, say, 1.0.09, rather than 1.0.9, before the 1.0.10. Howerver, if the version after 1.0.9 was moe major than the rest, than a minor version could be added and the program would be v1.1.0.