Res Formats
Volume Number: 2
Issue Number: 6
Column Tag: Resource Roundup
Resource Formats for Asm, RMaker and Lisa
By David Wilson, Personal Concepts
Creating Resources
When I first began to program the Mac, the accepted way to create resources was
to define them in a text file (named something like ExampleR.text) using the Lisa
Workshop. You then ran the text file through the Lisa's RMaker to compile this
high-level "resource language" into the correct format for each resource on disk.
In the Fall of 1984, I began to present Apple's three-day Macintosh Technical
Training seminars, designed to teach the basics of Mac programming, and we used this
approach to do our in-class programming with the Lisa Pascal Workshop.
Things have gotten more complicated during the last year, with the development
of various utility programs to help you create and modify resources, and even
decompile them into text files. Furthermore, as the readers of MacTutor long ago
recognized, programming directly on the Mac has grown tremendously in popularity.
Many programmers still use the text file approach, but use the RMaker that runs on the
Mac - one with a slightly different format from that used on the Lisa.
I had to deal with these format differences when we developed Apple's new
four-day Macintosh Programing Seminars , using TML Pascal on the Mac for in-class
programming. I had to convert my sample programs' source code from the Lisa
Workshop to TML Pascal, and finally created the table that follows to help in the process.
It is presented here in the hope that you will also find it useful.
"But wait", you cry! "I never use a Lisa - why should I care about it's obscure
RMaker format?" Good question. Here are some answers:
1. There are still many Lisa source code samples, from Apple and other sources,
that you may want to use. This table will help you painlessly convert them to your
Mac development system.
2. There are useful utility programs, such as DialogCreator and REdit that produce
text files only in the Lisa format. Again, you must do the conversion.
3. Other utility programs, such as ScrnEdit, will produce text files in either
format, but the text files often become a bit garbled in the process - you will need
some reference to put things in order, and the table may also be helpful in that