REALbasic Tips and Tricks by Erick Tejkowsi 06-14-01 Printer Version

This week we are going to break from tradition. Instead of the usual tutorial, we will take a look at some useful REALbasic tips and tricks.

Tip 1

REALbasic, like any well-respected Mac app, makes interesting use of drag and drop. For example, you can drag a window (named Window1, for this example) from the the Project Window onto a PushButton in the Window Editor. When you release the mouse, the following code automatically appears in the Action Event of the PushButton:

Some other drag and drop functions you can use in REALbasic:

• Drag pictures, sounds, AppleScripts, and REALbasic components directly into the Project Window.
• Select some text in the Code Editor and drag it to the desktop. The code becomes a Text Clipping instantly. Drag it back into the Code Editor to reuse it later.
• Drag code examples from the Language Reference (in REALbasic) directly into the Code Editor. Instant functionality - no typing required!
• Normally you drag a control from the Toolbar to the Window Editor. Did you know that you can also drag controls to the Code Editor as well? When you do, the controls name appears in the Code Editor.

If you are the musical type, perhaps you have tried out the REALbasic NotePlayer. If so, you know that to play a note you supply a note number (between 0-127) and a volume (also 0-127), like so:

This code plays a note (Middle C) at full volume. To stop the note, simply play it again with a volume of zero:

If you spend any time at all working with the NotePlayer, you'll want quick access to the note names and their corresponding note numbers. Download a quick hack that you can keep on hand for easy access to all MIDI note numbers.

Tip 3

A good habit to get into: Carefully check for required hardware and software on a user's machine before attemping to use or access it. This typically involves using the Gestalt method of the Application Class (see the REALbasic Language Reference). The Mac OS identifies a variety of system characteristics using a 4-letter code (for example, QuickTime uses "qtim"). GestLab is the best source around for discovering the codes and what they do. Make sure you check it out!

Tip 4

Do you spend a lot of time creating screenshots? Try using this simple MWRB app to cut down on the knuckle-busting screenshot key combinations in Mac OS 9.

Tip 5

Have you ever created a REALbasic interface and managed to cover every single pixel of the background window? It can be a real pain to reselect the window without inadvertantly selecting any other control. To avoid having to move controls around just so you may reselect the window, simply press shift when you click a control. This causes the control to become deselected and its parent window to be selected in the process.

Tip 6

If you use REALbasic to program for Windows, you'll appreciate this tip. Many MDI (multiple document interface) applications on Windows maximize the MDI frame window when launched. The MDI frame window is the parent window in which the applications windows open.

If you would like to maximize the MDI frame window when your application launches, insert the following code in the Open event of your application class: dim result as integer
CONST SW_MAXIMIZE = 3

//This Declare statement goes all on one line!

Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "user32" Alias "ShowWindow" (ByVal hwnd As Integer, ByVal nCmdShow As Integer) As Integer Declare Function GetActiveWindow Lib "user32" Alias "GetActiveWindow" As Integer

result = ShowWindow(GetActiveWindow(), SW_MAXIMIZE)