Richard Gaskin wrote:
What can we do with the MC IDE to make Rev an unnecessary step in your workflow?
Nothing. I have to answer questions about it every day in the tech support queue. I have to know it. ;)
However, I still like their standalone builder far better than MC's (and I know you don't use MC's SB either for many of the same reasons.) The way it omits IDE stacks until build time is really a good idea, and so is the build-time password protection which is so handy I can't imagine not using it any more. The auto plist is good too, though I sometimes end up tweaking it later, and the way it will add your app icons on any platform without any effort is a big plus. There's a lot of stuff in the SB that I find superior to MetaCard's. But again, I don't see any reason not to use both IDEs. They each have advantages and I don't feel like I have to choose. I run both IDEs all the time in tandem. I open stacks in whichever one is either not currently in use, or which is more suitable for what I'm doing at the moment.
I'm finding that some of their libraries are pretty good too, and I like their default field settings and general overall appearance better. (Face it, as much as we like using it, MC is ugly.) The auto-scripted menu skeletons are nice (actually, their menu builder is superior in other ways too, as it provides a GUI editor for existing menus.) The menu-based import of images, movies, and other files is far easier than MC's stack-based import, especially once you learn the keyboard shortcuts -- tap, tap and there's an imported image. If I need to do a lot of image importing, I do it in Rev. You can also import a whole folder of images at once if you need to. Again, that's probably not generally useful enough to add to MC, but the one time I needed that, I just opened the stack in Rev. I think of Rev as an extra toolbox in some ways.
MC's property inspectors are better for how I work and much faster than Rev's (Rev's drives me absolutely nuts, I can hardly use it.) I do all layout in MC because it is easier. I do most scripting and debugging in MC (but Rev's debugger is better for tricky problem scripts. When MC's debugger hangs, I move over to Rev.) I do all tinkering and one-off stuff in MC. I run all my personal stacks and utilities in MC. I vastly prefer the MC control browser over Rev's -- I would almost always rather see the simpler card-based view than plow through all the stuff in Rev's App Browser, which I find top-heavy, slow, and cumbersome.
But my Rev usage has crept up over the last year, partly because of the support queue but also partly because I find things here and there that are easier to do in Rev. But that's okay. It's like being bilingual. Why not have both?
I've said this before (and I suppose people think I'm nuts) but it is so very simple to open a stack in either IDE, even while you are currently working on it in the other. You just have to remember which one you last saved it in -- and I did get bitten by that once so my methods probably aren't for everyone. But, if I'm working in MC and find I want to do something that's easier in Rev, I can open the stack in Rev, edit it, save the stack, then pop back to MC and do a "revert" from the message box. I realize this isn't for everyone, but I'm so used to it now that it's second nature. I'm just using the "other" toolbox.
I guess if you really want to add stuff to MC, there's some ideas up there. But I've got a system that works for me, so don't change things on my account. ;)
-- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com _______________________________________________ metacard mailing list [email protected] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
