thanks for the tools

[Andre Garzia]

Folks,

This is just a little email to show some appreciation for Ken Ray, Richard
Gaskin, Chipp Walters, Mark Wieder and Jerry Daniels.

Kens XML Lib saved my life many times but what I want to talk right now is
about DropTools. Since I installed it, I became much happier and I am
already thinking about building and sharing new controls. The architecture
is easy and simple just the way it should be. Ken, Drop Tools Rock! (I wish
I could replace LiveCode toolbar with DropTools toolbar and
have a single place to drag controls from)

Yesterday, I dusted up my old G4 and went for source code hunting. I lost a
lot of data some years ago when both my intel machines fried up at the same
time (the main development machine and the main backup clone, two identical
macbooks, both fried). So while I was recovering from my bad Lion
installation, I decided to go back to the G4 to fish for some tools I liked.
The G4 booted fine and Revolution 2.7 launched with GLX2 (I also
found constellation there) man that editor is GREAT, Jerry should really be
proud and Mark too. I've installed the newly patched GLX2 on my Mac and it
is great. Talking about Jerry, there is a little tool that he made that I
think is really great, it is a simple thing but it is really useful and it
is Time Gadget. Time Gadget is a time tracking tool that is compatible with
altToolbar. I used that all the time and will keep using it indefinitely
probably. I think it is a great example of building really useful tools,
Jerry makes products with great usability, I wish he would still maintain
TimeGadget or consider giving it to some developer to maintain, it is a
great tool.

Marks recent work with GLX2 and PowerDebug adds a lot of power to our
development cycle. How many times I wished for some feature to be present in
LiveCode built in debugger... now, most of them are in PowerDebug :-)
Yay!!!!!

I've already talked about altToolbar many times but I think many in the
LiveCode community are not aware of it. Chipps altToolbar is to plugins what
DropTools is to controls. Man, so many great plugins. I still use magic
carpet, interface designer and time gadget. I have my own silly plugins as
well thanks to Chipps insight in creating an extensible architecture for
altToolbar.

Well, I got my first contract thanks to Richards beyond the browser article
but that is another tale, right now I am thinking about Devolution toolkit.
It is a simple extensible toolset, not unlike altToolbar with some great
stuff inside. I know Richard still works in it and may release an update
someday but the current Devolution incarnation is very good. The only thing
I miss is an updated form maker... I loose a lot of time building forms in
LiveCode...

During the recent years we had an influx of many new users who never used
these tools, many who are not aware that these tools exist. My advise to the
new guys and gals here is: Grab them, use them!

and to all the authors, you guys rock!!!!

Cheers
andre


-- 
http://www.andregarzia.com All We Do Is Code.