Workin' Man's MEL

Get the code HERE

If you've done any coding in MEL, two things become pretty clear early on:
1. It is incredibly powerful
2. It can be incredibly frustrating

This script tries to make your job of it a little easier.What does it do? Short answer: Quick MEL lookup guide. Long answer: keep reading.

This is a toolbox of sorts, handy MEL hammers and screwdrivers. Drop this in you shelf, call it up whenever you start scripting, put it away when you're done.

Line by line of the tools are:

Make MEL Verbose - This toggles the 'Echo All Commands' within the script editor window. By default it is off.

Clear MEL History - Clears the history side of the script editor, giving you a clean windows to copy commands from.

Show MEL Windows - Opens the Script Editor, just in an easier to get to place so you stop accidentily open the Preference Editor when you're reaching for the Script Editor. Or maybe that's just me...

MEL Help - In the text window, type any MEL command, such as 'window' or 'button', and hit the 'MEL Command Help' button below it or hit 'Enter' on the number pad and the MEL Help guide will automatically open to the help page for that command. If you leave the box empty and hit enter, or you misspell the command, the help guide will open to the master index page for all the MEL commands.

Open Notepad - Opens notepad, for scratch paper. Note that in the script you'll have to change the path to the windows directory if you are not using windows NT.

That's all there is to it. Not the most amazing thing since sliced bread, but at least as useful as sliced bread, at least as far as MEL scripting is concerned.

Here's the actual script if you want to see before downloading:

/* Workin' Man's Mel v1.0

copyright Jonathan R. Nelson
*/

//proc to define help button action

proc helpButtonAction(){

string $helpThis = `textField -q -text helpThis`;

if ($helpThis == "") {
showHelp -docs "Commands/index.html";
}
else {
help -doc $helpThis;
}
}

proc noteMe() {
system("start C:/WINNT/NOTEPAD.EXE" ); /*CHANGE THIS IF NOT USING WINDOWS NT*/
}

window -t "Workin' Man's MEL" -wh 175 200;
columnLayout;

checkBox -onCommand "commandEcho -state on"
-offCommand "commandEcho -state off"
-label "Make MEL Verbose";

separator -w 150 -h 15;

button -l "Clear MEL History" -w 150 -c "scriptEditorInfo -ch";

button -l "Show MEL Windows" -w 150 -c "showWindow $gCommandWindow";
separator -w 150 -h 15;

text -l "MEL Help:";
textField -ec helpButtonAction helpThis;
button -l "MEL Command Help" -w 150 -c "helpButtonAction()";

separator -w 150 -h 15;

button -l "Open Notepad" -w 150 -c "noteMe()";

showWindow;