#!/usr/bin/perl -w # # Copyright 2000 by Michael Coyle # Released under GPL. # # Call it with: # [an error occurred while processing this directive] # # Get the file name from the browser... $file_name = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}; # Open the file... open (EP, $file_name); # Print to the browser... print "Content-Type: text/html \n\n"; # Load the file and keep spitting it out to the browser... while () { chomp; print "$_ "; } # Close the file and go home... close EP #!/usr/bin/perl -w # # Copyright 2000 by Michael Coyle # Released under GPL. # # Call it with: # [an error occurred while processing this directive] # # Get the file name from the browser... $file_name = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}; # Open the file... open (EP, $file_name); # Print to the browser... print "Content-Type: text/html \n\n"; # Load the file and keep spitting it out to the browser... while () { chomp; print "$_ "; } # Close the file and go home... close EP

3D
3D Photo Gallery (Part 1)
3D Photo Gallery (Part 2)

Audio
Poor Man's MIDI
Make A Metronome
iPod Tricks (Part 1)
iPod Tricks (Part 2)
iPod Tricks (Part 3)
Laugh Track Machine
Audio Player with Reverb
Shepard Melody
RB Phone Home
Build a Drum Machine

Custom Controls and Windows
Double Click Listbox
Draggable Metal Window
Double Click Canvas
Custom Buttons
Custom Buttons Part II
iTunes-style Listboxes
Custom Controls


General RB
Scrolling Windows
Using Mesage Dialogs
Case-Sensitive Word Finder
Introduction to Stacks
Wiggle Window
JPEG in PDF
Listbox Checkboxes
Background Applications
Listbox Auto-Find
Virtual Volumes
Time Tracker
Software Distribution (Part 1)
Software Distribution (Part 2)
Software Distribution (Part 3)
Software Distribution (Part 4)
Exceptions
Tips and Tricks
Text Clippings Made Easy

Graphics
Drawing a Simple Gradient
The SpriteSurface: Space Game
Image Spinner
Cropping Graphics (Part 1)
Cropping Graphics (Part 2)
Cropping Graphics (Part 3)
Cropping Graphics (Part 4)
Shimmer Graphics
Lissajous Figures
Simple Screen Capture
Vector Graphics
Kaleidoscope Images
Stegonography
Spirals!
Image Table
RB Magnifying Lens
Screen Capture
Color Picker Tutorial

Hacks
Ghost Grab
Speedy Mouse Extension
iTunes Plugins
iTunes Skinner

Mac OS X
Global Hot Key Event (Carbon Events)
Login Welcomer (Carbon Events)
Add/Remove Buttons
Resizable Sheets
Mac OS X Preferences Window
Using Sheets in REALbasic
Build a Bundle (Part 1)
Build a Bundle (Part 2)
Dock Your Passwords
Mac OS X Debugging
REALbasic Mac OS X Icon Tutorial
Animate Your Dock
RB and the Command Line

Menus
Window Menu
Templates Menu
Listbox Menu

Novelty
Guessing Game
Calendar Trivia
Tile Mixer
Zip Code Finder
Happy Valentine's Day
Merlin Simulator (Part 1)
Merlin Simulator (Part 2)
Merlin Simulator (Part 3)
Buzzword Machine
AppleSoft BASIC

Printing
Print to PDF

Registration
Registration Code Validation
Network Registration Codes

Resources
Picture Extractor (Part 1)
Picture Extractor (Part 2)

Serial
Caller ID (Part 1)
Caller ID (Part 2)
Caller ID (Part 3)

Speech
Speech Recognition

Socket Communication
Easy Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
MacPAD Version Checking
Display Web Image In Canvas
HTML IMG Tags
Version Tracking
Even Smarter Instant Messaging
Web Tiler
JavaScript and REALbasic
Stock Ticker (Part I)
Stock Ticker (Part 2)
AIM Mate

XML Manipulation
Simple XML Introduction

Video
Big Brother Video Capture

Note: All articles without a byline were written by Erick Tejkowski. When cleaning the site I removed them because the code differed from page to page, and I have yet to put them back in.

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REALbasic for Dummies
by Erick Tejkowski

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Create a Stock Ticker Part II
09-06-01




Last week, we started building a stock ticker application. In that tutorial we looked at one way to retrieve stock information from the Internet with REALbasic. This week, we'll discuss how to display and animate the stock information. The animation will mimic a "Times Square style" stock sign.

Preparation

If you are following along from last week, open the Stock Ticker project and create two new Window1 properties: a Sprite and a Picture. To create these properties, open the Window1 Code Editor and select Edit->New Property.

09_06_properties.jpg (2833bytes)

Build the Interface

Since this is Part 2 of the tutorial, much of the interface is already built. This week, we'll continue using the interface from last week, adding the following three controls:

Control Settings
SpriteSurface Name : SpriteSurface1
Height=40
Timer Name : AnimationTimer
Period = 100
Mode = 0
PushButton Name : StopButton

Arrange the interface however you wish. To give you some ideas, here's how the demo interface is arranged:

09_06_interface.jpg (16k)

Add the Code

Before adding any code to the new controls, we will begin by appending some code to a control from last week. Scroll to the end of the DLfinished event of httpSocket1 (after all existing code) and add the following code:

09_06_dlfinished.jpg (44k)

To help you understand what's going on here, we'll look at this code in reverse order. The AnimationTimer periodically refreshes the stock animation. So, we simple turn it on here.

The heart of our animation is the SpriteSurface control. It takes care of running our animation and we have to do amazingly little work to make it do so. To animate with a SpriteSurface, you must first create a Sprite object, passing it a picture (named "p"). Thus, before creating a Sprite, we create a Picture object and draw the stock quote on it.

Since we want this code to execute anytime we request a new stock quote and a stock animation may already be running, we start this code off by clearing out any existing Sprite graphic with a black square. So, to recap in the forward order, we erase any existing sprites, create a new picture, draw the stock information on that picture, and create a sprite using the picture. Finally, we start the animation timer.

Navigate to the Action event of AnimationTimer and enter this code:

09_06_animationtimer.jpg (2996bytes)

This lonely line of code forces SpriteSurface1 to redraw its sprites. When you call the Update method of a SpriteSurface, it causes the NextFrame event of the SpriteSurface to execute. That's where we move the Sprite. Of course, if it falls off the edge, we want to bring it back to the opposite side to start the crawl all over again.

09_06_surface1_nextframe.jpg (5k)

Once the animation is running for awhile, you may want to turn it off. Open the Action event of StopButton and add some code to stop the animation process.

09_06_stopbutton.jpg (3400bytes)

Conclusion

To give you a taste for how the finished product should look, here's a screenshot. Following last week's recommendation, this graphic shows the interface shrunken to conceal the editfields where all the parsing takes place.

09-06_stock.gif (5k)

Test the project and when you're happy with the results, build the final application. You can download the application and completed project if you don't feel like working through the tutorial. See you next week!






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#!/usr/bin/perl -w # # Copyright 2000 by Michael Coyle # Released under GPL. # # Call it with: # [an error occurred while processing this directive] # # Get the file name from the browser... $file_name = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}; # Open the file... open (EP, $file_name); # Print to the browser... print "Content-Type: text/html \n\n"; # Load the file and keep spitting it out to the browser... while () { chomp; print "$_ "; } # Close the file and go home... close EP #!/usr/bin/perl -w # # Copyright 2000 by Michael Coyle # Released under GPL. # # Call it with: # [an error occurred while processing this directive] # # Get the file name from the browser... $file_name = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}; # Open the file... open (EP, $file_name); # Print to the browser... print "Content-Type: text/html \n\n"; # Load the file and keep spitting it out to the browser... while () { chomp; print "$_ "; } # Close the file and go home... close EP