A question for Mac users.
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/A question for Mac users.
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| Well I've tried them all. XCode tools, Mono, Real Basic, and a few other freebies that are out there on the net. I've come to the conclusion that BMax is the best and easiest to use environment for developing Mac applications. All the books I've found for XCode tools preach the evils of CoCoa-Java Apps, and the benevolence of Objective-C. Problem is, I don't have time to teach myself yet another flavor of the C language. Real Basic worked really nice, but it's too bloody expensive (for a hobby programmer anyway). I also found Chipmunk Basic, Metal and a few others. Mono would be great if 'MonoDevelop' ever makes it's way over to the Mac Platform. BMax is just a great language with a lot of potential. It's just a shame there're no good GUI editors out there for it. Which brings me to my question: Do you think it might be possible to create a program that would parse a .Nib file (created with the InterfaceBuilder application) and spit out some BMax GUI code? -jim |
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| Its possible to create everything. The question is always how much work it will be :-) If you have the full documentation on NIB format it shouldn't be to hard after all, at least for the things that are supported by BM after all (which is not as much / full featured as you have with Cacao or .NET / Mono yet) |
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| When it is finished Max'd GUI (the GUI editor I'm working on at the moment) should allow you to easily design and create GUI forms for the MaxGUI module of BlitzMax. See my signature... |
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| My god Seb! That is beautifule. Definitely something to look forward too. I'd pay good money for an IDE as complete as that. Keep it up. I'll be checking back regularly to see your progress. Dreamora: Yeah, I realize that. I just haven't had the chance to search for any info on .Nib files yet. I was hoping to save some time by seeing if anyone else knew anything about them before I start digging. -jim |
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| Holy Crap! For smiles and grins I opened up a Nib file in TextWrangler, and it's actually a bunch of Java Code! Definitely looks like something I may be able to play around with. :D |
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| Believe it or not there is a Mac OS X forum here but it's hard to find. I'm trying to get the forum administrator to move the Mac os X forum from the very bottom of the forum lists to the BlitzMax list. Considering the only Blitz product available for Mac os X is BlitzMax it makes sense. Currently Mac topics end up in the general forum and disappear very quickly. I urge all Mac users who would like to see the forum promoted and visible to all to contact the Blitz webmaster using this link http://www.blitzbasic.com/Contact/_index_.php |
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| Blitz is definitely more straightforward and easier than XCode. I'm trying to get XCode to import blitz code and compile it but no luck after several days. I love that Max you just hit a button and you have an exe. |
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| I'm not crazy about the way you kind of have to "Wire" outlets and actions in the Interface Builder. I've played around with Objective-C. Not crazy about the language, but the Mac developers all swear by it. BMax is extensible, and just plain easy to use. I just wish there was a good GUI designer. -j9t |
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| Let's hope Seb gets Max'd GUI on the go soon.. ;) |
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| For slapping together Mac GUI apps, I have to say REALbasic is by far the best out there. Of course you have to pay a bit for it, but the built-in GUI editor is excellent. There's no reason why you can't parse nib files, but of course a lot of the information in the file will be irrelevant for Max GUI. Would be fun trying tho :-) |
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| ExtremeBasic is also very easy to use. It's like a cut-down version of REALbasic, except it's free. However, I think it's still in Alpha. |
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