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8-29-03
Adios Amigos
by Erick Tejkowsi
Well, folks, it's been fun, but all good things must come to an end. Starting in September,
I will be permanently vacating the REALbasic seat at ResExcellence. I've had a great time
working with the ResEx staff and the REALbasic community. In the meantime, as luck would have it,
I've grown more and more busy with work and family and I simply don't have the same time to
devote to ResExcellence as I have in the past.
Not to fear, though! Seth Willits will be the new REALbasic staffer starting next week. Seth is a
REALbasic fanatic, a slick coder, and a regular contributor to the RB Developer magazine.
He already has dozens of new tutorials planned
for the REALbasic section, so get ready for some fun.
Join me in welcoming Seth to ResExcellence. His fresh ideas will
help make ResExcellence one of the premiere REALbasic references on the web.
8-20-03
REALbasic News
by Erick Tejkowsi
PDF Analyzer
Belle Nuit Montage released
PDF Analyzer for OS X.
PDF Analyzer exports source pictures from PDF files.
They needed a small utility to extract images embedded in PDF
files. This program did the job. Now you can have it too!
PDF Analyzer is freeware.
uDevGame 2003
REAL Software announced that it will sponsor uDevGame 2003.
REAL Software will donate prizes of software licenses for REALbasic Professional
Edition and REALbasic Standard Edition to winning entrants.
The uDevGame Mac Game Development Contest was established by iDevGames
in 2001 to energize game development on the
Apple Macintosh platform. Since its first year, over 60 developers have
competed for prizes worth over $19,000. Building on the success of the 2002
contest, iDevGames is looking to make this yearŐs contest, which will kick
off during the beginning of August, bigger and better. REAL Software, Inc.
has been a proud sponsor of the uDevGame Contest since 2001.
REALbasic Developer Program
REAL Software has announced their new Developer Program. By participating in this program,
you can get rapid response, personalized support, and can influence the product direction of REALbasic.
Cool!
Micono Utilities Plugin
Michio Ono has released a new (free)
Utilties plugin for Carbon, PPC, and Windows.
It has the following functions:
- Hex dump list
- Convert Value TO Hex String
- Convert Color TO Hex String
- Convert SInt TO UInt
- Read file in a direct string or a memoryBlock. (s=f.micReadAsString)
- Utility for reading Raw image data.
System Preferences Style Window
Seth Willits has created an example to demonstrate how to implement
a System Preferences-like preferences window in OS X using toolbar items,
a page panel, and a Declare from the Carbon Declare Library.
It's all neatly wrapped up for you and works great.
pgSQL4RB
Some new PostgreSQL classes ( pgSQL4RB ) are now available
as a public beta from Aliacta International Corporation.
pgSQL4RB consists of classes, which REALbasic software developers can include in their projects,
to easily communicate with PostgreSQL databases.
8-13-03
REALbasic News
by Erick Tejkowsi
REALbasic 5.2.1
REAL Software, Inc. announced today that
REALbasic 5.2.1, a maintenance update, is available immediately. REALbasic 5
customers can download the REALbasic 5.2.1 update for free at
http://www.realsoftware.com/download/index.html
RB Garage
RB Garage, thie popular FREE online resource for REALbasic developers, is back and
better than ever! RB Garage currently includes more than 430 links to
plugins, classes, modules, examples, tutorials, and more. The site has been
completely redesigned from the ground up with a robust new database engine
and dozens of enhanced features, such as a new Member Login system.
Developers can now easily add, edit, and update their listings at any time
(just like VersionTracker).
KidzMail
KidzMail, a full-featured email client designed
for children that was Made with REALbasic, is available or download.
With KidzMail, children draw pictures and send them to people in their address book.
Addressing email is as simple as choosing recipients from a list of pictures and names.
Parents control the address book, so they know who their children are sending email to.
KidzMail sends real email that any email client will accept.
Pictures are sent as both JPEGs (a popular picture format found on the Internet) and KidzMail pictures.
Even somebody without KidzMail should be able to receive and view KidzMail pictures.
KidzMail is a full-featured email client. You can throw unwanted email in the trash,
save unsent email as drafts, and file important email in the filing cabinet.
You can reply to and forward email, and you can print email as well.
KidzMail can also send and receive text messages as well as KidzMail pictures.
HTMLField 2
Domain Softworx announced HTMLField 2,
the unofficial final release of HTMLField by Doug Holton.
It was designed and written to be a fast, simple HTML rendering solution for REALbasic.
HTMLField 2 supports a variety of HTML tags and renders them in very short times.
It is a subclass of EditField, however, and thus cannot display tables or images.
Releasing a Windows Version?
If you develop software for the Mac, you may be stumped when it comes time to release a version for Windows.
Fortunately, Dave Wooldridge of Electric Butterfly has taken away some of
the guesswork and provided this list of suggested sites where you can submit your next Windows release.
8-8-03
Wiggle Window by
Erick Tejkowsi
Should you accidentally enter the wrong password while logging onto an OS X machine, you'll
notice that the login window wiggles back and forth a few times. In fact, it looks like the
login window is shaking its head "NO!" at you. This week we'll look at how to implement this
functionality with REALbasic. It turns out that it's very simple to accomplish, so let's get started.
Build the Interface
Launch REALbasic and open the default Window1. To this window, add a PushButton and a Timer. Set the Mode
property of the Timer to 0 (zero). You can arrange the window however you wish. Mine looks like this:
Add the Code
Open the Code Editor for Window1 and add two properties to the window:
- origx as integer
- wiggle as integer
Next, enter this code in the Action event of PushButton1.
Finally, add this code to the Action event of Timer1.
By clicking the PushButton, you reset some variables that keep track of the position of the window
as well as the number of wiggles. Then, the timer starts firing. As the timer fires, it increases the wiggle counter
and alternates the position of the window between its two positions. Once the counter exceeds 5, the timer stops. Simple, eh?
Conclusion
That's all there is to it. As usual, you can
download the code for this week's project here. See you next time!
8-6-03
REALbasic News
by Erick Tejkowsi
REALbasic Developer Turns One!
Launched last summer at Macworld
Expo New York, REALbasic Developer magazine is publishing its seventh issue,
celebrating its one year anniversary.
REALbasic Developer is a bimonthly 52-page periodical of tutorials for
users of REALbasic, the popular development system for Macintosh,
Windows, and soon for Linux.
Beginning with the August/September 2003 issue, REALbasic Developer is
enhancing support for Windows development and will be adding more
Windows-specific columns in the future.
The latest issue features articles on REALbasic's upcoming Linux
support, new REALbasic 5 commands, 3D mesh transformations, and a
tutorial on how to add a "recent items" menu to any application. Plus
there are bimonthly columns on database development, beginning with
REALbasic, user interface, 3D graphics, and much more.
Code Cleaner 1.6.3 and SelfUpdater
Owen Yamauchi has announced a minor update to CodeCleaner (version 1.6.3),
the tool that makes your code look good.
Version 1.6.3 includes the following changes:
- Fixed a DIM merging bug. (thanks to Joerg Pressel for pointing it out)
- Fixed a bug that occurs on startup that can cause code to "vanish"
He also posted SelfUpdater, a tool that allows developers to drag-and-drop self-updating capability into their applications.
LetsSee
Irony software has announced LetsSee version 2.1 for OS X.
LetsSee is a graphics browser that gives you fast and easy access to your
favorite pictures and movies. It is made with REALbasic.
Undo Toolkit
Version 1.1.1 of Undo Toolkit is out. Undo Toolkit allows you to add unlimited undo and redo to your REALbasic project with just one line of code per control.
Undo is a pretty handy feature, indeed!
Palm Goodies
Jan Erik Mostrom has released some Palm-related applications that are made with REALbasic. Rather than
further screw up the HTML characters in their Swedish names (as i've already done with his name), you can check them out yourself.
7-30-03
REALbasic News
by Erick Tejkowsi
About Window for OS X
Seth Willits has posted a
Dual-Form Standard OS Appearance OS X About Window.
This lets you quickly and easily create a standard OS X About box (like the ones you see in Cocoa apps).
Another About Box
Scott Forbes has also released his OS X About Box code.
AquaAboutBox 1.1.1
cheerfully steals the HTML and "Select All" features
from the "OS X About Window" project from Seth Willits
Undo Toolkit
Scott Forbes has been busy this week. He also posted
Undo Toolkit 1.1.
Undo Toolkit allows you to add unlimited undo and redo to your REALbasic project
with just one line of code per control. Just change each control's "super" to its
Undo Toolkit counterpart, add one line to set the EditUndo menu text,
and you've implemented a fully featured undo system in a fraction of the time.
Undo Toolkit is an open source project available under the GNU General Public License.
rb.Extreme
Nate Smith has announced rb.Extreme, a new online community for REALbasic developers.
Developed from the ground up using tools built with REALbasic,
rb.Extreme provides a collaborative learning and trading space for
REALbasic developers.
The main interaction areas include a Question and Answer [Q&A] Forum and
a Tutorials database. Contributors are rewarded by a point system.
Both worthy answers to questions and tutorial donations are rewarded
with "extreme.Points." Those points can be traded in for advertising
space, merchandise and more. Unlike other point-based communities,
rb.Extreme does not consume points from users asking questions.
rb.Extreme is being unveiled as a free community, and will stay a free
community. The search engine, tutorials database and other resources
will always be accessible to REALbasic developers.
Use Palm files with REALbasic
BitJuggler software has announced the release of
PDB Data 1.0.1.
The cPDBData and cPDBRecordListItem classes can be used to parse and modify Palm PDB files.
Note, however, that you must understand the PDB file format in order to use these classes!
CodeCleaner
Owen Yamauchi has posted version 1.6.1 of CodeCleaner,
the popular utility that allows REALbasic developers to
perform various cosmetic modifications to their code.
It is the fastest, most reliable and most feature-packed release yet.
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Boot Panels
