Since Apple completely revamped its resource editor (now at version 2.1.1), at least three books have been published: Apple’s own ResEdit Reference, Berkeley Mac Users Group’s Zen and the Art of Resource Editing and now Addison-Wesley’s ResEdit Complete.
The latter is by far the best of the three at getting the most out of an amazing and powerfully dangerous program. ResEdit, of course, is a resource editor that allows users to perform such tasks as customizing their system and software and allows programmers to design interfaces for their applications.
Don’t get me wrong: The other two books are fine volumes that I refer to often. However, ResEdit Reference (reviewed in The Finder in September 1990) tends to be awfully technical and not nearly as user-friendly as ResEdit’s new interface. It expects readers to know more about programming than most do.
BMUG’s Zen and the Art of Resource Editing (reviewed in The Finder in April 1991) is just the opposite. It is a bit like cotton candy: It does a good job of explaining what resources are and how they work, then gets into some of the authors’ favorite ResEdit tricks. The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough for users who really want to get the most out of ResEdit and their computers.
ResEdit Complete nicely fills the gap left between the two.
Authors Peter Alley and Carolyn Strange anticipate nothing from their readers except that they want to learn everything they can about ResEdit. Alley, a senior software engineer and programmer for Apple, was the project leader and codesigner of the new ResEdit. Strange, who has about six years of Mac experience, is an established technical writer. As you will find in ResEdit Complete, Addison-Wesley has left us in good hands.
I like to use ResEdit a lot. I use it mostly to add or change keystrokes in various applications to my liking. I guess I would rather use ResEdit than a macro program for adding simple keystrokes because I find it less messy to create, permanent and, because it becomes part of the program, faster than a macro. I love macros, but mostly for multi-keystroke functions.
I haven’t used ResEdit for much else, though, except maybe changing an icon here or there. I’m mostly fearful of the program because I have destroyed more than a few applications and systems while trying to possess their secrets. When it boots, ResEdit should come up with the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Now, with its new, beautiful interface, it is like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing: It doesn’t look so dangerous, but it still is.
That is why you and I need a book like ResEdit Complete.
ResEdit Complete’s 546 pages are broken into seven sections stuffed with tips, tricks and good, solid information.
• ResEdit Basics: With something this dangerous and complex, this book must begin here. It starts off with warnings about what you can and can’t do with ResEdit. Learn about resources, ResEdit’s menu functions and how to edit the System, Finder and Desktop files.
• Customizing Your Macintosh: This section is what the bulk of what BMUG’s Zen and the Art of Resource Editing covers. Learn how to use the Fatbits Editors and Pattern Resources, how to personalize pointers, how to create and edit icons (and how the mysterious Desktop file deals with them), how to modify menus (my longtime favorite function) and the keyboard layout, how to customize windows, dialogue boxes and alert messages and how to fiddle with fonts. This section’s final 30 pages contains a plethora of tricks and tips, including startup screens, printer defaults, changing the creation date of files, making files and folders invisible, playing with sounds and copying files in the background.
• Templates: Keys to Dozens of Resources: Learn what templates are and how to use them and how to customize the Finder file’s layout. The final 25 pages of this section contain such template projects as writing PostScript code to a file, changing the system font and changing the ImageWriter’s paper size. An especially helpful part of this section shows how mouse tracking works and how to control its speed. This information was unavailable in the other two ResEdit books, yet I found it quite valuable and, I’m sure, useful to other users.
• Color, Color Everywhere: My Mac world tends to be black and white, so this section as yet doesn’t interest me much. If you are fortunate enough to have color, you’ll learn about color basics, color icons and how to add color to the user interface.
• Programming with ResEdit: Mostly — but not reserved only for — programmers, this section explains how to create windows, dialogue boxes, alerts, menus and templates.
• Customizing ResEdit: What a unique thought, customizing ResEdit with ResEdit. In the newspaper business, pickers and editors have something to do with habits in the sports department. Here you’ll learn how they work in ResEdit. Also get an in-depth look at the ResEdit interface.
• Appendices: Not for the weak, this final section covers additional hints and shortcuts, editing resources in hexidecimal, resources in ROM and translating applications for other languages.
ResEdit Complete comes with a disk containing ResEdit 2.1. This didn’t thrill me since it probably added $5 to the price for a program that is freely available from many sources, including the McMUG disk library and BBS.
ResEdit is easy to read with many illustrations. It is easily the best computer book I’ve purchased this year.
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