I have only seen two plug-in editors for EVN (for Macs at least). Neither of them has everything.

The best of these two so far is Mission Computer. It is free. It has a good interface. It edits most resource types. My big problem with it is that it doesn't show/load/whatever the EVN data files like EVONE does. If I want to look up what a bit is or what ID a weapon is, I have to search for which data file it's in.

EVONE is definitely the worse of the two. Besides costing money, its resource editors are no better than the plain ResEdit templates. I actually prefer using NovaTools over using EVONE. It is also slow. However, when making a "fix" or something that changes a small thing, it is the better choice. But I really wish Arios Software would do better than just copying the templates, loading the data files, and charging me money. It also lacks "open related resource" buttons, such as Mission Computer's spob editor has for editing planets. It is REALLY annoying to me to have to go look for a misn's desc resource when I can just click "Edit" in Mission Computer. I also don't like how it shows some resources but has no editor for them. Namely, RLeD, RLe8, dsig, ppat, cicn, and Ttab.

Noticeably absent from both of these is an RLeD/RLe8 editor, or even viewer. However, I can understand the difficulty of working with a new resource type that can't be read with a simple template.

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All your password are
belong to us

Well, there is always ResEdit/NovaTools as well. For completeness, that simply cannont be beat... yet.

Incidentally, I'm trying to build my own Nova Editor but not having any real programming experience it's gonna take awhile. If there's anyone around here that knows C and would be willing to help out and answer dumb questions I would greatly appreciate it. Right now it's just something for myself but if I came up with something decent...

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I use Novatools for most of my work.

Mission Computer has a wonderful intf editor, which beats Novatools in having to type in co-ordinates hands down. The Galaxy editor in Mission Computer looks nice, but doesen't work.

As for EV-One, has an absolutely lovely galaxy editor, but I can't afford to pay for it.

I agree, the either of the editors not having rled/rle8 function is a bit annoying.

Novatools is good for most things with the exception of System/Galaxy creation, Intf creation, and descs, I love the way descs are all linked into the spob resource in Mission computer.

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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain.

I have always been a fan of NovaTools on mac. Simple, complete, and infinately powerful within the limits of the engine (with one exception - theres somethign wrong with it's junk editor.)
Never tried Mission Computer, and Arios garrantees I will never use EVONE just by thinking about charging for it (his "not my fault, cant be done" attitude towards fixing rezconv has only galvanized my negative opinion of him as a person).
On the PC, EVNEW does have an RLE viewer that exports/imports to standard formats.
EVNEW does not have a graphical galaxy editor, though one may come at some point. Also, development has really slowed down of late.
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

I go back and forth between NovaTools and MissionComputer. EVONE may be worth the money -- I just haven't gotten around to investigating it very much.

Bomb has useful reviews of the editors in his plug-in guide; the link is in my sig. You gotta check the web sites for the editors too, though -- MissionComputer and EVONE keep evolving.

ConText and ResStore (on the w00tware NovaTools page) are also very valuable, especially if you are working on a plug that has lots of similar resources. ConText dumps your plug-in contents into a spreadsheet that you can edit or add to in Excel (etc) and then reconstitute into a plug by using ResStore. I put off trying this for a while because it seemed like more work than it was worth, but when I finally did it I found it a very efficient way to do things like weapon balancing, typo hunting, and ship-variant creation.

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(url="http://"http://home.comcast.net/~drtrowel/")Dr. Trowel's E.S.W.P.(/url) -- Featuring Cold Fusion Graphics for EVN Override, and an EVN/O outfit bug fix.
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Quote

Originally posted by Diordna2:
**But I really wish Arios Software would do better than just copying the templates...

**

And that is precisely why it is in beta. Other editors are in development - have patience. The ultimate goal is graphical editors for everything that will be just as easy to use as the current Galaxy and spob editors.

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(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com")Arios SoftWare(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/products/evone/")EVONE 1.0pb2 - the plugin editor for EV/EVO/EVN(/url)

I'm glad the programmers are responding. This was meant as constructive criticism.

While AriosSW is on this topic, I'd like to request that resources are greyed out instead of that "template not found" warning or whatever it is.

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All your password are
belong to us

Quote

Originally posted by Diordna2:
EVONE is definitely the worse of the two. Besides costing money, its resource editors are no better than the plain ResEdit templates. I actually prefer using NovaTools over using EVONE. It is also slow.

The Template driver is much more advanced than merely using the templates. It automatically changes flags into checkboxes, colors into color editors, and also has descriptions for each resource entry. The slowness issue is a matter of computer most likely, it works quite well on mine.

Quote

But I really wish Arios Software would do better than just copying the templates, loading the data files, and charging me money. It also lacks "open related resource" buttons, such as Mission Computer's spob editor has for editing planets. It is REALLY annoying to me to have to go look for a misn's desc resource when I can just click "Edit" in Mission Computer.

Basically all that is completed in EVONE are the system and galaxy editors. For those editors that are completed are linked together, you merely need to double click on the system/planet to open the associated resource. Again, the Template Driver is just a placeholder for the actual resource editors, they are not meant to be full-fledged editors. They serve the purpose they were created for.

Quote

**Noticeably absent from both of these is an RLeD/RLe8 editor, or even viewer. However, I can understand the difficulty of working with a new resource type that can't be read with a simple template.
**

Jeff is working on an RLE editor and viewer, which is on its way to completion.

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
(his "not my fault, cant be done" attitude towards fixing rezconv has only galvanized my negative opinion of him as a person).

If you are running Mac OS 8, it is not his fault- the version of carbonlib required for it to work does not exist on that operating system.

~ SpacePirate

BTW, I'm not surprised no one remembers my little app, which edits ships... Meh.

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Eat blazing electric death!

(This message has been edited by SpacePirate (edited 12-31-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**If you are running Mac OS 8, it is not his fault- the version of carbonlib required for it to work does not exist on that operating system.
**

Gee, I'm really confused now - you mean no modern program can open or save on OS 8? I wonder how all those other recently made programs that work on 8 manage to open and save...
Besides, it doesnt work for a good number of people on OS 9 and OS X, either!
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 12-29-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Originally posted by SpacePirate:
If you are running Mac OS 8, it is not his fault- the version of carbonlib required for it to work does not exist on that operating system.

Gee, I'm really confused now - you mean no modern program can open or save on OS 8? I wonder how all those other recently made programs that work on 8 manage to open and save...
Besides, it doesnt work for a good number of people on OS 9 and OS X, either!
-Az

**

Sarcasm is unnecesary for a topic which you clearly do not fully understand. To set the record straight, I will explain in depth. My apologies if this explanation gets too technical for you.

There are two means of presenting Open and Save dialogs. The first came along with System 7 and involves the Standard Put File and Standard Get File dialogs. These are mainly what you see used in OS 9 and earlier. They are modal, meaning you can not move them, and they have a significant number of shortcoming, the details of which are irrevelant here. OS X does not support these dialogs.

The new, better, way takes the form of Navigation Services 3.0. Navigation Services were first introduced in OS 8 and 9 via CarbonLib and over the years have used a number of functions to present flexible, modeless, dialogs to the user. With version 3.0, these functions are NavCreatePutFileDialog and NavCreateGetFileDialog. Navigation Services, in my experience, provide a much better interface to the user, but are significantly more difficult to use. So difficult in fact, that I have written my own implementation library for my apps to simplify the process.

As is obvious, RezConv needs to work on OS X, so my only choice is to use Navigation Services. For EVONE, I had recently updated my implemenation library, NSIL, to use NS 3.0, so my only choice for RezConv is 3.0 - I can't go back to 2.0 or 1.0 which would likely work better on OS 8. (3.0 also provides some features RezConv needs) Navigation Services 3.0, being the newest file technology out of Apple, obviously does not work well in OS 8 which is 5 years old.

Therefore, to provide OS 8 support, I would have to rewrite RezConv from scratch as a Classic application to use Standard Get/Put File. Seeing that I haven't written a Classic application since the release of X 3 years ago, it would be a significant effort and is not worth it for a free utility app.

Hopefully you now understand why it does not work and why I am unwilling to fix it.

For the record, I have not had a single report of problems with RezConv under OS X. It should work flawlessly under OS 9 when the system is properly upgraded to CarbonLib 1.6 and OS 9.2.2.

Edit: I just saw your additional complaint that development of EVONE has slowed. I do not dispute the claim, it ceased during November with good reason - I had to apply to college. (For those who haven't yet done it, it is a ridiculous amount of work) But, now that I have been accepted to Stanford (!!!!!!), development will pick right up again in the new year.

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(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com")Arios SoftWare(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/products/evone/")EVONE 1.0pb2 - the plugin editor for EV/EVO/EVN(/url)

(This message has been edited by AriosSw (edited 12-29-2003).)

Arios: Thank you for your explaination. It does help clear things up. It's really too bad that there is no way to get a rez converter that will work on 8.6 (I think the ideal situation would be one that would run on an emulated 8.1 or 7.6, so that someone with only a PC could make his EVNEW-made plugins work on all computers.)
This does not answer the question of why RezConv has failed for people running newer versions of the OS. I know of one person on Jaguar for whom rezconv did not work, though I do not have the details on what went wrong.

Also, when i said development had slowed, i was not refering to EVONE - Since I do not use EVONE, i would not know about the status of EVONE development. I was refering to EVNEW, the windows editor, on which development has slowed significantly. There are a few features in EVNEW PB-1.02 that i am really looking forward to, and I have a feeling i wont see it for a while
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**If you are running Mac OS 8, it is not his fault- the version of carbonlib required for it to work does not exist on that operating system.
**

Gee, I'm really confused now - you mean no modern program can open or save on OS 8? I wonder how all those other recently made programs that work on 8 manage to open and save...
Besides, it doesnt work for a good number of people on OS 9 and OS X, either!
-Az**

I have heard exactly one report of problems under OS X. I had problems with 9.1, but that's because it's 9.1. 9.2 was created to be more stable with Classic under OS X. Thus, chances are it handles Carbon apps better, or maybe there was just some problem they fixed in the process that they didn't bother telling us about. In any case, if you don't use it under OS 9.1, it should be okay.

By the way, if you're having problems with it under OS 8, he made a version that should theoretically be more compatible. I don't know if he still has it up, though.

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Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**I know of one person on Jaguar for whom rezconv did not work, though I do not have the details on what went wrong.

Also, when i said development had slowed, i was not refering to EVONE....
**

Please encourage the person running Jaguar to report his problems to me - I am unaware of any problems with it in OS X.

Hehehe, whoops. I skipped that middle sentence and thought you were still on EVONE

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(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com")Arios SoftWare(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/products/evone/")EVONE 1.0pb2 - the plugin editor for EV/EVO/EVN(/url)

AriosSW you may want to pipe in on this topic then; (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004919.html#")Arc Public Beta Test(/url) as that topic brings up the point of converting and shows so far a 2/3 ratio of people who are able to convert it using OS 10.

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