ResCaf README

Copyright (c) 1999 by George B. Smith
     <smithg@cs.msstate.edu> good
     <brannonsmith@yahoo.com> better

INTRODUCTION

ResCaf is a Swing-based Java utility for reading and extracting
resources such as ICONs and MENUs from the Resource Forks of Macintosh
files.


HYPE

ResCaf was created with one main idea in mind - extensibility. There are
so many different types of resources and not everyone is interested in the
same ones (though there are some that are probably more in demand, such as
Icons). I didn't want to write a parser, what I call a Handler, for all of
them, but I didn't want to exclude potential new ones or force a recompile
to add them. So I've tried to implement a kind of "Plugin Architecture"
which, while awkward in places, seems to work well overall.
It even "auto-detects" new plugins (with some caveats)! Cool! 

I hope someone will write some cool plugins - mine are kinda boring.

I also took this as an opportunity to explore:

- Swing, which is really cool and powerful once you get to know it;
  A vast improvement over AWT.

- the MVC (Model-View-Controller) design framework/architecture/whatever.
  I hope I'm using it right. It seems to a pretty good way to build stuff, 
  but it can be tricky. I might have kludged it a bit at times.


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$Id: README,v 1.1 2000/07/15 20:46:32 gbsmith Exp gbsmith $
