There are regular questions on this board about 'which editor should I use', to which the usual reply is 'use the search function'. This is of course a little unhelpful, as the editors are evolving, and old searches will reveal complaints about bugs which no longer exist.
Here is the profile of my ideal editor, and a comparison chart of how the editors stack up with it. Please add your own ideal editor profile. Please don't turn this thread into a flame war about your favourite versus the rest.
Martin's ideal editor:
- Is stable and doesn't destroy files
- Doesn't corrupt things (including things it doesn't know how to edit)
- Edits all the functions
- Easily allows you to copy functions
- Is point and click rather than enter hex values
- Shows you the results of what you've done
- Gives debugging help
- Gives added value ie, intelligent functions
- Enables multiple open views
- Understands multiple open files
- Is free
The editors compared
Res Edit with Nova Tools
- Very stable under OS9, problematic under OSX
- Provided you have the current version, ResEdit doesn't corrupt
- Yes, it edits everything
- Very easy to copy stuff - even bulk copying
- Very point and click compared to earlier Res Edit templates. Some coding still required
- Very good at showing you what you've done with Shans
- Not much in the way of debugging help
- Added value is in the Nova Tools menu - some basic but important formulae and ncb help
- Multiple open views ok
- Doesn't understand how to look at other files
- Totally free
Mission Computer
- Current OSX version seems very stable
- Doesn't corrupt stuff
- Edits everything, but not equally. Script based stuff is quite rudimentary
- Copying is a pain
- The non-RDL script bits are point and click. The RDL scripts are very code oriented. The map interface is a bit clunky
- Shows you what you've done with systems and spobs, not so helpful with others
- Nice map debugging functions
- Help function is very good but incomplete. Added value in the target generator. Resource copier is not especially useful
- Doesn't do multiple views at all
- Doesn't understand how to look at other files
- Is free
EVONE
- Stable
- Doesn't corrupt stuff
- Edits everything, but not equally. Most is script based and rudimentary.
- Copying is fine
- Not very point and click except for map interface
- Shows you what you've done with map stuff.
- Not much debugging
- Contains excellent conversion utility. Can save as Windows .Rez files
- Very well set up for multiple views
- Understands how to look at other files
- You have to pay for it.
And the victor is: well, on OS9, ResEdit with Novatools, but not for map editing. On OSX it has to be Mission Computer, although you'll be searching around the Resource Bible a bit. EVONE's multi-file, multi-view is excellent, but gets confusing when you try to look at your map which it shows with EVN's. Plus the registration fee is a real killer.
Horses for courses, as they say. To bring them up to scratch, Mission Computer needs to offer multiple views and look at multiple files, and replace the RDLs with proper interfaces. EVONE needs to make itself much point and click - there's still way too much coding required.
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M A R T I N T U R N E R
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