PilrcEdit v0.42

PilrcEdit is a Java based graphical editor for PilRC .rcp files, used in developing UIs for Palm devices. It is currently under development and any bug reports, fixes or suggestions are welcome.

There is also a page for PilrcEdit at SourceForge where you can sign up for the mailing lists pilrcedit-announce where annoucements of new releases will be sent, or pilrcedit-discuss where you can discuss stuff about PilrcEdit.

Features

• Will read any valid .rcp file. If you find one that doesn't work, send it to me (with any associated .h files) and I'll make it work.
• Provides a pixel perfect display of what a .rcp file will look like on the Palm with up to 4x zoom.
• Fully supports (and encourages) the use of relative positioning values such as PREVLEFT and AUTO, but allows this to be turned off if desired.
• Supports custom fonts in the PilRC .txt format (as well as properly displaying the standard fonts)
• Reads .bmp and .pbm files for bitmaps (not .pbitm or .xbm yet - is there any demand for it?)
• Allows choice of colour depth - see what it looks like on a IIIc.
• WYDIWYS (What You Do Is What You See) editing. No bounding boxes. If you drag a button it will move in real time, along with any other controls that depend on it's position or size. If you change a value in the Properties box, the control will change immediately (no pressing Enter or selecting another property).
• Platform independent. Should run on any Java platform but is only tested on Win32. It is reported to run ok on Linux and Solaris. It is being developed with 1.3.0 but being tested with 1.1.8, 1.2.2, and Microsoft's VM.
• Supports Drag and Drop on 1.2 and greater VMs. Drag a .rcp file onto the main window and it will open. Drag a Pilrc code snippet from your text editor and it will be inserted into the form (or a new form if the selection is a whole form or alert)
• Multiple language support for application strings (though English is the only one currently available. Any takers?)
• Open Source. Released under the GPL so it is free to use and the source is included.

Unfeatures

• Only currently supports display and editing of Forms, Alerts, constants and Bitmaps. All other elements of the .rcp files such as MENU, STRING and VERSION are read and written unchanged when the file is saved.
• Can't drag table columns.
• Translation not supported yet.

Installation

• Download and unpack pilrcedit042.zip (293k)
• Make sure you have a Java JRE or JVM installed and running correctly (1.1 or greater). Note that IE5 installs the Microsoft VM automatically so if you have that browser you might already have a VM. If not, download one at http://java.sun.com/ (or http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/ for Linux). If you don't know which version you have, type java -version on your command line.
• If you are running Win32 and Java2 (1.2.x or greater) the easiest way to start PilrcEdit is by double clicking on pilrcedit.jar in Explorer. If not you can put pilrcedit.jar in your classpath and then try java pilrcedit.PilrcEdit Finally you can run it from the command line with
  java -jar pilrcedit.jar (Java2),
  jre -cp pilrcedit.jar pilrcedit.PilrcEdit (1.1) or
  jview -cp pilrcedit.jar pilrcedit.PilrcEdit (Microsoft JVM)

Tutorial

Screenshot

Release History

• 07/05/00 0.10 Initial Release
• 08/05/00 0.11 Fixed minor bugs related to _'s in includes, popup triggers and STRINGs at the end of files.
• 09/05/00 0.12 Removed requirements for AT and ()'s for locations, fixed CR/LF problem on Win32, fixed list ID bug, now allows include file constants in all numeric fields.
• 10/05/00 0.13 Fixed problem with FormBitmaps not appearing, added some dialogs, enabled X on window to quit the app, fixed parse problem with string file resources.
• 19/05/00 0.14 Fixed whole pile of Darrin Massena's bugs including ()'s in quoted strings, truncated right aligned popuptriggers and equations in table column widths.
• 30/05/00 0.15 Lots more misc bug fixes wrt Alerts, JDK1.1 compatibility, and popup lists.
• 04/08/00 0.20 Back from a break on another project. Lots of things for this one:
  • Reorganized internals to separate expression parsing from FormObject
  • Added Scrollbar (if anyone knows how long the car (the bit you drag) should be given various values for MIN, MAX, and PAGESIZE, please let me know
  • Added Editor for lists (eg List items or Alert buttons) and multiline strings (eg Alert text). Double clicking on the appropriate property will bring up a text area for you to type in.
  • If the main window is selected and you start typing, the focus will switch to the properties window at an appropriate field (usually Label) so editing the text of controls is a lot easier.
  • Added Constants editor (Others|Constants) - pretty basic at the moment.
  • When you enter a constant in an ID field and it is not found it will show as red. If you press Enter it will add the constant to the .h file.
  • Added checks to see if the current project has been modified before quitting or loading a new project and prompts to save.
  • Added File|Preferences menu item. Only two at the moment - to do with disabling the autolinking feature and breaking links when moving.
  • Lots of new stuff for Lists - can now edit the items, for popups you can double click on it to pop up or down or create a PopupTrigger for an existing list (or a List for a trigger)
  • Fixed icon problems on 1.1
• 08/08/00 0.21 Sorted constants list and added deleting of constants (select constant in list and press Del). Fixed display of zero visible items Lists. Removed ID field from FormBitmap properties. Fixed problem displaying/undisplaying Properties window.
• 01/09/00 0.22 Modified to deal with .rcp's that use PilRC's -h option to autogenerate constants. Fixed bug with saving projects containing Fields with no MAXCHARS set.
• 06/09/00 0.23 Fixed bugs with quotes in labels, constants in fonts and lockups when creating circular dependencies.
• 20/09/00 0.30 Fixed DEFAULTBTNID capitalization problem. Added Form object lister (View|Form Control List) to see and select all controls in a form. Useful for finding empty labels. Added drag and drop support for Java VMs 1.2 and greater.
• 31/10/00 0.40 Another fairly big one.
  • Added Bitmap/Icon selector.
  • Added colour depth selector to View|Color Depth
  • Added #ifdef/#ifndef support for Forms and Alerts.
  • Added recent files to File menu.
  • Removed PilRC constants from code and moved to pilrc.key, enabling multiple versions of constants (eg. BITMAPCOLOR and BITMAPCOLOUR).
  • Moved most other strings into english.key to enable International support.
  • Fixed bug with extended characters causing errors.
  • Added Bitmaps section to tutorial
• 01/11/00 0.41 Added PilRC 2.6 BITMAPCOLOR16 and BITMAPFAMILYSPECIAL support. Lots of misc bugfixes to do with screen size at 1x zoom, extended characters, deleting bitmaps, _'s in filenames and menus.
• 08/11/00 0.42 Added two more options to File|Preferences - Auto Reload and Bring To Front. Made #ifdef,#ifndef,#endif always write out lowercase. Fixed multiline comments in Alerts. Removed ; from font list. Fixed bug with deleting objects. Thanks to Laurent Dutour for the bug reports.