Text mode resource editting

[cm000000]

That would be nice if we can edit dialog resources as text. In several resource editor this feature is available.
It is useful to me because the controls can be arranged just cutting and pasting, change their properties on the fly, make several changes simultaneously like texts and ID's and more.

Another point. When several controls are selected and try to use the 'space equal' tool, the controls are positiones in a way that look a little bit differente from the rest of res editors I use.
Borland ones takes the extremes controls, computes the width, substracts the control's width and the remaining space is distribuited in the n-1 spaces between the controls. The group always keep the same width before and after.

Best regards,

Carlos.

[Pelle]

First point: open "as text".

Second point: Maybe I will try out some other resource editor some day, but at least Borland is not a useful reference to me...

[cm000000]

First point: open "as text".

Second point: Maybe I will try out some other resource editor some day, but at least Borland is not a useful reference to me...

Hello Pelle,

about 1st point:
it's not possible to open as text a resource stored in a binary format like DLL or EXE. I understand that always resources can be saved as text, but in the case of large binary resource files this is a heavy task, considering that every switch between text and resedit mode implies recompilation of all code.

About a useful reference, I'm not sure what defines a reseditor as useful reference, i'm just refering them just for the options and functions they have and nothing else. About availavility there is a free version of turbo C++ from codegear but i'm sure you already know that.
I use sometimes ResHacker, you can find it googling. it's very basic but it has the feature sugested.
Resource builder is another reseditor with the same feature, but it is commercial. There is a demo available.

The point is Decompiling just the dialog resources to a buffer, editing as text and recompiling the text back to the dll or exe.

Best regards,

Carlos.

[Pelle]

First point:
No, it's not possible to open as text for an executable file since there is no text to open in the first place - it would have to be generated. Generating a text representation of a single resource for editing seems odd, if nothing else. I'm not sure this is common enough to bother with (as you say - there is always the possibility to save everything to disk). Also, there is nothing that says only dialogs should be considered. At least for WinCE there may be resources depending on each other, making the text generation phase more complicated. Perhaps this is something better put in an add-in...?

Second point:
I'm not sure what is a useful resource editor either - I can only say what I don't like... 
As I said before, I will look at some of the available editors later, but it's not a priority right now...