what is resedit?

[toughboy]

one of the mac-guru acquaintance who I talked recently told me someting called "resedit" or something like that.. he said its used to "fool" the system that ir has more resource than it really has, but said nothing more.. can you guys give some more explanation in detail?..

 

[MacFan26]

It was a program really only for pre OS X systems. It allowed you to open files or programs, and essentially see everything it's made of. Could be dangerous if you're playing with important files, it's easy to change stuff. You can find out more about it at http://www.resexcellence.com They still have it on there, although most of it is dedicated to OS X mods now. I used ResEdit to play with all the source files of System 6

 

[HexMonkey]

To start with, you'll need to know about file forks. Back before Mac OS X, most applications (and some other files) had two forks, a data fork and a resource fork. These are pretty self explanatory, a data fork contains data (such as text or code for PPC applications), and a resource fork contains a number of resources, such as pictures and dialogs (for more information on file forks, click here). ResEdit was a resource fork editor made by Apple, the last version being made in 1994.

With Mac OS X, however, Apple discourages the use of resource forks for compatibility reasons (since not all file systems support resource forks), instead recommending things called bundles, which are essentially folders disguised as files. Hence ResEdit is pretty much obsolete.

 

[jsw]

I used ResEdit to play with all the source files of System 6

6?? Was it an old Mac, or were you doing that when you were, oh, five?

It was a cool app, though.

 

[MisterMe]

one of the mac-guru acquaintance who I talked recently told me someting called "resedit" or something like that.. he said its used to "fool" the system that ir has more resource than it really has, but said nothing more.. can you guys give some more explanation in detail?..

ResEdit is the name of Apple's resource editor. Its purpose is to edit the resource fork of applications and documents which have resource forks. Resedit has a number of built-in templates to handle such file types as applications, fonts, and others. Because of the power of the editor, one should edit only copies of originals.

Resedit and its commercial competitor, Resourcerer, are essential to Mac development prior to MacOS X. MacOS X developers may perform the same functions using ordinary text editors and image editors.

 

[toughboy]

wow..

gosh.. wow.. this resedit thing smells pure history to me since I just only used a little 9.2 and all the rest of "my mac history" is Mac OS X.. So I didnt understand anything from his words because I mostly used Jaguar and Panther huh?.. Thanks guys.. that was an incredible knowledge for me

 

[7on]

OSX still uses resource forks to an extent. Mainly used to store what program opens a certain file. That's why if you copy a OSX file to a Windows disk you see invisible ._filename files. Aren't these the resource forks for those files?

 

[yellow]

Aren't these the resource forks for those files?

Yup.

 

[MacFan26]

6?? Was it an old Mac, or were you doing that when you were, oh, five?

haha, actually I have old 6.0.3 install floppies, and I copied all the files to my 6500/250 running OS 9, where I played with them in ResEdit. I just liked looking at all the different pieces of the OS. The only thing interesting I did with it was copy the source of the System Sounds to new files that could be used with OSX. I missed the old "Monkey" sound Haven't used ResEdit in a long time though, maybe I'll have to fire up the 6500 and send some of it to my G4