Why can't we use them?

Why is it impossible to use RID's of less than 128? It seems like a good idea- there are no RIDs under 128 in the stock scenario. Use one under 128 for your plug, and you are guarenteed to have no conflict. Like it is now, you have to look at, for example, the wëap (weapon) field. You see that there are 81 wëaps in the stock scenario. You add 81 and 128 to tell you that 209 SHOULD be the highest number there. However, you can't be sure because they all skip around some of the time. Wouldn't it be easy if you knew that between 1 and 128, there was no conflict? Instead, we can't even use those numbers. Of course, if we could there would be things from the stock scenario there. But maybe they would keep them like that as a feature. I just want to know why they can not be used, really. The rant about why they should be was just an added bonus

In older versions of Mac OS, RIDs below 128 were reserved for OS use. Using them would have done really bad things to the system, IIRC.

This post has been edited by UE_Research & Development: 27 July 2005 - 07:36 PM

You mean the system uses them on spec? I dont think the system would have its on shďp rescources...

128 is a weird number to add... the least significant bit of the second byte.

Also, ResEdit automatically starts numbering at 128 (probably for the same reason) so it'd be a pain to re-ID them just for the sake of starting at 1 (or 0).

The Holy (more holy than the Bible, when it comes to that) Apple Developer Documentation states that resources with IDs less than 128 (not just 0-127, actually -32768 to -1 as well) are reserved to the system. No one should ever use them. Doing so is asking for trouble.

Yeah. There's a reason it's 128: 0-127 are reserved, for a total of 128, or 2^7, reserved resources.

However, Matt could probably have used 0-127 for the Nova-specific if he wanted, but for historical reasons, chose not to. That, and it was easier for him to remember, and easier for the developers. It's just silly to have to remember a few 0-based resources in a world of 128-based ones.

By the way, ZP, any reason there's a 4 after 1337 in your sig?

This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 28 July 2005 - 06:21 AM

A y?

I am using resid's less than 128 for rles and descs with no trouble.

rmx256, on Jul 28 2005, 12:32 PM, said:

I am using resid's less than 128 for rles and descs with no trouble.
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OMG, you better not be....

You're A-S-K-I-N-G for trouble. The very slight cosmetic gain of having resources start with 0 is massively offset by the risk of resource conflicts. Why don't you put your system folder in the Trash, and your applications in the Apple Menu while you're at it? <_<

This post has been edited by tycho61uk : 29 July 2005 - 11:31 AM

It's hardly a cosmetic gain anyhow when everything else starts at 128...

How do you get a Y out of 4? 4 in 1337 generally means A, and "leeta" doesn't make any sense.

tycho61uk, on Jul 29 2005, 04:31 PM, said:

OMG, you better not be....

You're A-S-K-I-N-G for trouble. The very slight cosmetic gain of having resources start with 0 is massively offset by the risk of resource conflicts. Why don't you put your system folder in the Trash, and your applications in the Apple Menu while you're at it? <_<
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Only for OS 9 users.

Guy, on Jul 29 2005, 10:03 PM, said:

Only for OS 9 users.
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As far as I'm aware, rmx still uses OS9, as do I (for EV development anyway). It's actually extra effort to use resources below 128 in ResEdit, and the whole point of EV Plugins is that they override the existing EV resources of the same ID. So by using 0-based IDs, your making life much harder for yourself in the long run. I'm surprised it even works at all!

Mac's are superior to PCs for one reason more than any other: consistency. The Windoz world is dominated by crappy, overpriced software because too many Windoze developers think that they're style and they're way of designing a GUI is better than everyone else's. IDs 0-128 are reserved for a reason on the Mac

Yes, these are reserved by the system for a certain task- I am aware of this. But the system does not use desc or rle resources so I figured that it would be ok.

tycho61uk, on Jul 29 2005, 05:14 PM, said:

IDs 0-128 are reserved for a reason on the Mac
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tycho61uk, on Jul 29 2005, 11:14 PM, said:

As far as I'm aware, rmx still uses OS9, as do I (for EV development anyway). It's actually extra effort to use resources below 128 in ResEdit, and the whole point of EV Plugins is that they override the existing EV resources of the same ID. So by using 0-based IDs, your making life much harder for yourself in the long run. I'm surprised it even works at all!

Mac's are superior to PCs for one reason more than any other: consistency. The Windoz world is dominated by crappy, overpriced software because too many Windoze developers think that they're style and they're way of designing a GUI is better than everyone else's. IDs 0-128 are reserved for a reason on the Mac
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For development it doesn't matter as the resources don't actually get loaded. Only if you're running Nova itself in classic might you have problems. I often use desc ID 1 to store some notes about the plug.
But you can't use 0-based IDs for the main resources like ship and outfit and stuff anyway as Nova simply won't look at them. And most other resources like pict and desc have specific ranges which Nova uses for certain things, so while you could use some of those below 128 in places where they're referenced explicitly (eg picts in descs) there would be no cosmetic advantage for doing so.

I use ID's 1 and 2 to add version id's to my plug-ins. Dunno if X uses them, but 9.1 does. Apart from that, 128 and up, except occasionally an ID three for some info on my plug-ins for me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't ResEdit already provide a place to enter version numbers? I can't recall off the top of my head what it is, but I think it either has to do with the "Get info" menu command or else with a resource named "Vers" or something similar. No?

vers 0 and 1 are Apple-mandated (in fact, any other vers resources will be ignored), as are IDs lower than 128 for various special program types such as desk accessories and control panels, but you shouldn't use IDs less than 128 except when specifically instructed to do so by Apple; when you break the rules, even if it still seems to work, you can't count on it working under all circumstances.

I agree with everything that MissionComputer's David Arthur is saying here.

Do not use resource IDs less than 128 for any Nova-specific resource! Bad things may well happen -- Matt's code will expect IDs above a certain number for many common tasks.

Dave @ ATMOS

Yeah. A resource named vers needs to be made, and then 1 and 2 in that.

Yeah. A resource named vers needs to be made, and then 1 and 2 in that.