[Coco] Rainbow IDE

[Roger Taylor]

Hello gang,

I've been busy with my new spin-off of Portal-9...

I wanted to give some good news to the 6809/6309 and other 8-bit CPU 
developers among us.  My new Rainbow IDE will be able to let you add your 
own cross assembler with ease.  You'll be able to point to the folder where 
your assembler .exe is and then set some custom options for it so the IDE 
will insert the right content into the command line string in the right 
places, etc.

The best part about this is that I'll have a set of default configuration 
files for a lot of cross assemblers out there.  There's a LOT, which means 
I've got my work cut out for me with research.  However, the automatic 
configuration files will be added over time with the most popular 
assemblers coming first.  So when you point to your assembler, you can also 
choose from a drop-down menu like so:

CCASM 6809/6309 Assembler by Roger Taylor
CASM 6809/6309 Assembler by Chet Simpson
MAMOU 6809 Assembler by Boisy Pitre
TASM Multi-CPU Assembler
etc.

I'm sure I will narrow down the choices by examining the .exe filename.  I 
realize there are a lot of duplicate assembler names out there as well as 
the executeable filename.  I use as much logic as I can without actually 
trying to do the thinking for the programmer, but expect the IDE to make 
things easy for you without completely overwhelming you like all other IDEs 
out there. :)

When you click APPLY, some default settings will be set for the assembler 
you actually pointed to.  You can also change these settings yourself manually.

It's working good right now for my CCASM assembler.  This new feature lets 
me reduce a lot of code in the IDE a remove the hard code for the 
assemblers supported.

Rainbow will be a "smart IDE" like Portal-9 requiring minimum configuration 
to get a job done, and will support pretty much all 8-bit assembly 
development because of the ability to add any Win32 assembler and then 
emulate your built project using the seamless interaction with M.E.S.S.

PLEASE let me know your ideas and comments about this new IDE and I will do 
my best to support your programming needs.

Thanks

-- 
Roger Taylor