[ANN] DropTools Palette - Makes using and distributing custom controls a breeze

[Ken Ray]

Hey everyone! At the RunRevLive 2011 conference I gave a talk on custom
controls and demonstrated an easy to use method of adding custom controls to
your stacks. It received a lot of great feedback, and so I've worked on it
over the last five weeks and now have a really great LiveCode add-on called
"DropTools Palette".

The DropTools Palette makes using custom controls a dream - you just drop a
"DropTool" stack into a folder and then from the palette you just drag and
drop the control onto your stack - any behavior buttons, resources, images,
and code is automatically installed without you having to do anything! The
DropTools Palette also supports custom controls that use a library by
automatically installing and putting into use the library that it needs to
operate.

Developing a DropTool is really easy - in fact if you have a pre-scripted
control you'd like to turn into a DropTool, it can be as easy as dropping it
onto a stack, setting a couple of properties and then saving the stack in
the right folder!

DropTool developers can even add a custom property inspector for their
DropTool to help the user configure it, or provide an About Box for info or
online documentation!

The DropTools web site not only is a place to download the palette, but also
to acquire new DropTool stacks as they are created. The web site is also a
place to go to find out about *any* custom controls that have been made
available to the LiveCode community, whether they be in DropTool format or
not. (I'll be keeping up with announcements and updating the site
accordingly.) 

The DropTools Palette comes with two custom controls you can use to get
started - a PromptField and the stsImageWell control, but there are more at
the DropTools site, and I will make announcements when more DropTools have
been made available.

For more info and to download the DropTools Palette, go to:

  http://droptools.sonsothunder.com/index.irev

Enjoy!


Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/