SolVE: Local Shared Object Viewer/Editor

(c) 2004 Darron Schall. All rights reserved.

Last updated: Oct. 15, 2004

About

SolVE is a Local Shared Object View/Editor that runs on both Mac OS X and Windows. Coded in Java with IBM's SWT, SolVE looks and behaves like a native application making transparent to the end user that Java is under the hood.

Currently, SolVE supports the more common basic types but is still in development. The source code has been released under the Common Public License.

Supported Types

Currently, SolVE supports the following data types in local shared object files:

• Number
• Boolean
• String
• Object
• Null
• Undefined
• Array

Features

SolVE is not entirely feature-rich at this point. Still in version .2, the interface allows for basic operations. The main differentiator between SolVE and the other .sol editors (.sol Editor and ASV SOL Viewer/Editor) is that SolVE is a native solution for Mac OS X users and SolVE is available in languages other than English. Never-the-less, here is a basic feature list:

• Runs on Mac OS X and Windows, as long as a JVM at least v1.4 is installed
• Create new .sol files
• Interactive tree display to visually inspect and change contents of a .sol file
• Internationalization support. Please contact me if you'd like to translate SolVE into another language.

Change Log

v0.2 - Oct. 15, 2004 - Darron Schall

• Support for Arrays (Date, XML, etc. coming whenever I get time)
• Fixed a problem with UTF-8 support for String values
• Added French, Bulgarian, and Chinese translations, as well as a menu to change language on the fly. Special thanks to those who translated the resource strings
• Fixed the starting path on Windows for "Open from Player Folder"

v0.1 - Sept. 13, 2004 - Darron Schall

• Initial Release

Future Enhancements

The following is a list of features that I plan to implement in SolVE.

• Obviously, support for all of the data types
• Drag and Drop support - simply drag a .sol file onto the application window to open it.
• Drag and Drop support for the data tree - to move nodes around easier
• Better use of SettingsManager - save application state better (window size, window position, last file opened, recent file list, widths for tree/property pane, configurable shortcut keys, etc
• A toolbar needs to be added for shorcuts to open, close, save, etc.
• A "refresh" event item (menu/toolbar) needs to be added
• shorcut keys for the property pane
• add icons/graphics (specifically in the data tree)

Known Issues

Besides not supporting all of the data types for a local shared object, the following is a list of known issues:

• Circular references are not handled correctly. If an object has a member that refers to itself, unexpected results occur
• There doesn't appear to be a way to set the "start in" folder when opening a file on OS X with SWT. On Windows, there is a menu option to "Open From Player Folder", but I can't seem to get a file open dialog to start at a specific directory in OS X with SWT.
• The "Open From Player Folder" might only work in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This will need to be tested on Windows 95/98/ME, and will be corrected (if need be) in a future version.
• When renaming a property, if a property with that name already exists, no error is thrown. Naming two items in a object the same name will produce unexpected results when opening the .sol in Flash
• Long property name aren't caught correctly yet.

Please send any bug reports to darronschall[at]users[dot]sourceforge[dot]net with a description of the bug, your os version information, and steps to reproduce.

Thanks

Special thanks to Eric Dolecki for graphical support / OS X testing and Jim Cheng for OS X alpha testing.

Huge thanks to the translators:

• Bulgarian - Rostislav Hristov
• Chinese - Deng Jie
• French - zwetan

Donate

If you'd like to support the development of SolVE, please consider giving a donation. I'm building SolVE in my free time that might otherwise be used for contract work. Any support (either monetary, or simple thank you emails) is welcome. Click the paypal button below to donate or send me an email if you find SolVE useful.

ScreenShots

This is SolVE running on my Windows XP machine:

This is SolVE running on Mac OS X 10.3:

License

SolVE is released under the Common Public License.

Disclaimer

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Basically, SolVE should run just fine... but if it manages to overheat your processor, start a fire, burn the leg of your favorite desk chair, and singe your cat Fluffy's fur... it's not my fault. Use at your own risk!

Download

You can find the downloads on the SolVE project page on SourceForge.

If you have trouble getting SolVE to run, please let me know. All of the required libraries are included in the distribution, however SolVE requires Java (1.4 or higher) to run. Mac users can open the zip file and double click the program icon to launch. Windows users can open the zip file and launch SolVE via the executable.

*Note to Windows users: In order to get the Windows XP look, you'll need to copy javaw.exe.manifest into the same directory where javaw.exe is located (probably something like: C:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.2_04\bin)

*Note to Mac Users - I don't know the minimum OS Requirement for SolVE. I think any version of OS X should work, but I want to say 10.3 is the minimum required. However, I believe Jim Cheng got SolVE to work successfully with 10.2.