The first semantic source code beautifier in the world. And that's not all.

June 20, 2009

This Compiler 911 release (version 0.2009.4.1) contains a number of major Innovations: source code beautifier, win32 resource editor, and IDE reengineering. Let's have a detailed look.

Source Code Beautifier

We are happy to present You the first semantic source code beautifier system in the world. What does "semantic" mean? And why is it the first? The answer is simple. Semantic is the working principle. Compiler 911 analyzes program's source code on the 3 levels: lexical analysis, grammar parsing and semantic analysis. Then, when You press the "Beautify" button, the source code is generated from the information derived from semantic analysis. It is not just formatted or indented - it is created(!). The rules of source code generation are described in the Beautifier Scheme file. (New->Beautifier Scheme). This release contains just a prototype of the Beautifier; It is not complete and can hardly be used for real work. First of all, it does contain not all the necessary rules described. Secondly, there are some problems with preprocessor directives. Thirdly Compiler 911 is an optimizing compiler, which optimizes the program's logic, so the beautified code may not to contain some never executed loop, for example. Very funny, isn't it? So if You want, You’re welcome to try it; You can create beautifier scheme, modify some rules, apply it to some project's source code. The function of one procedure beautifying (not all the unit) is also available: just right-click on the procedure's name in the source editor and choose "Beautify in new tab".

Resource Editor

Win32 resource (*.res) files are the part of win32 projects (along with Source and Form files). Now Compiler 911 allowes You not only to explore resource files, but also to edit them.

Of course, there are lots of resource editing tools. And we did not want our compiler just to be a clone of any of them. On the contrary, our aim was to provide users with some special features lacking in other resource managing tools. Compiler 911 is more like a low-level resource editor. Any resource file consists of resource items. Compiler 911 allowes You to see the original contents of theresource file, without grouping resource items into logical groups. For example, cursor and icon files are stored in the res file as a group (more than one) of resource items. You can view and edit these items separately using our Compiler. You can fill resource items with any data You want. You can see invalid items, which are just being ignored.

And a very nice and usefull feauture - Dilaog editor - is available now too.

IDE Improvements

Frankly speaking, we haven't paid much attention to the compilers's IDE till now. e have been mainly focused on the non-visual part of compiler. But the situation has changed, and we have made a number of improvements and reengineerings of the IDE to make it safer and error-free. Most of them are not visible to your eyes, but some of them you still can note:

New style Popup Menus.
A little redesign of Component Palette and its modes. It is available in 3 styles now: Component Palette, Component List and Grouped View. The contents remains the same, but the style of data representation varies
Component Palette can be filled individually for different file types (source, form, resource, beautifier) now. For example, when editing dialogs resources in resource files, it contains available dialog controls to be dropped on it. In other mode it still contains a list of visual components, which are implemented just for beauty.
Object Inspector has a description panel now.