FinalBuilder user Steve Troxell just posted this (unsolicited) on the FinalBuilder newsgroup.. the kind of post that makes the effort and time to develop FinalBuilder all worthwhile. I'm quoting verbatim here :
I have had FinalBuilder for a year or so, but used 2.6 really extensively just this past week. FinalBuilder has always been one of my favorite tools (and it ain't easy to get on my "good tool" list) but now I gotta say it is probably the best productivity leveraging tool I have. And I don't just use it for builds....I use it to automate every task I can think of. It is so
much easier and quicker to string together some FinalBuilder actions than to write an application...and I can always stick in a little console app anywhere I need extra help...but I'm not forced to do that for everything.
The "Run FinalBuilder Project" action let's me modularize specific tasks quite easily without having to go to the trouble of actually writing a new action plug-in. By making good use of project variables, and surprisingly little scripting, I was able to build a very extensive, reusable build process preamble which works for any application I need to build. This preamble is used as a "Run FinalBuilder Project" action at the top of the application-specific FB project and with it, all I have to do is enter a version number, a build number and optionally a VCS label, and I can kick off a build for any application, or any prior version of that application at any time. It even prepares builds of prior versions to compile with an old version of Delphi if that's what was used at the time. The version/build numbers are stored in an INI file in the VCS so usually all I enter is a build number and off it goes. When I start a new application, this FB subproject and a "Compile Delphi" action go into a new FB project, define some project variables, and poof! I have a minimal automated build for the new application that is fully integrated into the VCS and handles automatic version numbering and VCS tasks consistently with all other application builds.
Sorry, I am usually spending gobs of time discovering and working around problems in third-party software. I am just so happy that FinalBuilder works so well and actually gives me back time. I just had to say something.
Steve Troxell