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Articles 3D Audio Custom Controls General RB Graphics Hacks Mac OS X Menus Novelty Printing REALbasic 2005 REALbasic 2006 Registration Resources Reviews Serial Speech Sockets XML Video Resource Links News Current News February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005  REALbasic for Dummies by Erick Tejkowski  Learning REALbasic through Applications REALbasic for Macintosh REALbasic Cross-Platform Application Development 
Older files are in Stuffit 5 or greater format. Newer files are ".Zip". Download StuffIt Expander |
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This week we'll create a simple REALbasic application that enables you to churn out custom iTunes visual plugins. Have a fun message you want to surprise a co-worker or loved one with? Try passing it along via iTunes to really get their attention. I know what you're saying.... "You can't build an iTunes plugin with REALbasic!". Fundamentally this is true. Using a few tricks, though, we can fake it. Using an existing plugin, we will replace a few items within it and build a new copy of the plugin with the revised settings, thus making a "new" plugin. The end effect is an iTunes plugin of your very own that happily draws your name in multiple colors when run. Build the Interface This week's interface is drop-dead simple to create. Launch REALbasic, open Window1 and drag an EditField, StaticText, and PushButton into the window. The EditField will be used as a place to enter your name. Pressing the PushButton will:
To give you an idea of how this might look: 
Add the Code Before we jump in and start coding, you need to know a few things. First, the plugins you will create are based on a template plugin named "ResexPlugin". When installed, this plugin is a fully functioning. It displays the word "ResExcellence" in flickering colors. Further, the name of the plugin (as it appears in the iTunes menu) is "ResEx Plugin". If you do a quick count, you will see the following:
The plan is to replace these two bits of information with your own data. Since this resides within the data fork of the plugin, it is vital that you not change the length of either string. Changing them will likely render the plugin useless. Don't need all the characters? We'll fill in any blank spots with a "space", since it maintains the string lengths yet won't alter the display. The code is fairly minimal this week as well. For starters, double-click PushButton1 and enter the following code: dim src,dest as folderItemdim s,yourname,yourpluginname as string dim binin as binaryStream //find the default plugin src=GetFolderItem("ResexPlugin") if src<>nil and src.exists then dest = GetSaveFolderItem("",EditField1.text+" plugin") if dest<>nil then CopyFileOrFolder(src,dest) //we are going to change the file , so openAsBinaryFile(TRUE) binin = dest.openAsBinaryFile(TRUE) //ResExcellence = default text drawn onscreen //ResEx Plugin = default plugin name s = binin.read(binin.length+1) //add thirteen spaces to the name to be certain we //have the minimum number of characters yourname = left(Editfield1.text+" ",13) s = replaceAll(s,"ResExcellence",yourname) //the longest plugin name is 12 characters yourpluginname = left(Editfield1.text+ " Plugin ",12) s = replaceAll(s,"ResEx Plugin",yourpluginname) binin.position = 0 binin.write s binin.close end if end if If you were paying attention, you may have noticed the undefined CopyFileOrFolder call. This leads us to our last code example. Select Edit->New Method and create a new method: 
You may recognize this method from the Language Reference in REALbasic. In fact, if you navigate to the "FolderItem" entry in the Language Reference, you will find the code for CopyFileOrFolder, which you can drag from into your new method. In case you like to type, the code is: Dim i as IntegerDim newFolder as FolderItem If source.directory then //it's a folder newFolder=destination.child(source.name) newFolder.createAsFolder For i=1 to source.count //go through each item If source.item(i).directory then //it's a folder CopyFileOrFolder source.item(i), newFolder //recursively call this //routine passing it the folder else source.item(i).CopyFileTo newFolder //it's a file so copy it end if next else //it's not a folder source.CopyFileTo destination end if Conclusion That's it! Test the project and when you're happy with the results, build the final application. The resulting plugin should produce somthing that looks like this: 
Don't forget to keep a copy of the template plugin (entitled "ResexPlugin") in the same folder as your application. As usual, you can download the application and completed project. It also includes the C source code in case you are interested in building your own iTunes plugin in CodeWarrior. Until next week! |
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