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REALbasic News by Seth Willits
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July 20, 2005
General News
I Declare - eBook on REALbasic Declares Updated for RB 2005
Charles Yeomans's online book on external functions is now "somewhat" updated for REALbasic 2005. Charles writes: "In particular, I have rewritten some parts of chapter 2 to include the changes to declares, and added a separate section on the MemoryBlock class. Over time, I will update the example code to reflect the additions to the language. I welcome your critical and monetary feedback, and appreciate all of both that I have received so far."
OpenBase SQL Module for REALbasic for "Headless" Applications
OpenBase International announces an open beta for a new REALbasic connectivity module for the OpenBase SQL database -- written in pure REALbasic code. In addition to providing compatibility with the existing database API, the module is suitable for console, CGI and other headless REALbasic applications. OpenBase SQL is currently the only database to support headless REALbasic applications. The new REALbasic connectivity module supports REALbasic versions 5 and beyond and is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Contact norman@openbase.com to participate in the beta.
REALbasic Development
MorphMap v1.0.2
Lo Saeteurn's MorphMap project implements interpolation between Object3D "key frames" which allow for smooth animation in REALbasic's 3D class, RB3dView. Version 1.0.2 optimizes the MorphMap to use MemoryBlocks runs three to ten times faster. The project comes with an example of how to use the class to animate a character.
WordGuise Plugin v1.0 - Full Blown RTF Text Editing
WordGuise Plugin is a REALbasic plugin providing a novel text rendering engine that writes or parses rtf-formatted text, and allows image embedding. WordGuise is for REALbasic 5.5.5 or later, and requires Windows NT/2000/XP or MacOS X. The plugin, however, supports three targets for the Mac. The Mach-O target allows anti-aliased rendering, contrary to the PEF-Carbon target. WordGuise plugin comes with numerous helper classes to allow a versatile implementation of a text editor. WordGuise is also a composite widget, composed of REALbasic-native controls and classes.
Freaky SQL v2.0 Alphas - Now with REALSQLDatabase Support
Freaky SQL (formerly REAL SQL) is a tool for REALbasic developers which allows the creation, viewing, and modification of REAL and REAL SQL Databases for use in REALbasic projects in version 5.5 and 2005 and later. REAL SQL is easy to use and feature rich, enough so to be an indispensable "Wonder Tool" as our users have said. Freaky SQL is free for all uses. Version 2.0 includes support for REAL SQL Databases, but it's not completely implemented yet. Help the development of this tool by downloading and trying it. Freaky SQL is available for Windows and Mac OS X.
GraphPro v2.2 - Graphing Classes for REALbasic
GraphPro is a flicker-free graphing class for REALbasic. It is cross-platform, working on Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Windows, and now Linux. GraphPro costs $75 (which includes the source code). For a detailed list of features (far too many to list here) see the GraphPro website. New in 2.2 are QuickSort algorithm on the cCurve class, new properties for several graph types, new examples, and a few bug fixes.
Sparse Array Class v1.0
Norman Palardy released the first implementation of a sparse array class. "What is a sparse array?", you ask. Imagine an Excel spreadsheet that only has some cells filled in. If you created a REALbasic array to hold the cells you'd end up with an array that was larger than you really needed as you'd have lots of empty cells. If you had a spreadsheet with 65535 rows and 256 columns, that's a lot of empty cells. The SparseArray class only holds the cells that have data. And you can have as many dimensions as you want completely determined at run time.
RegExplorer v1.0 - RegEx Utility for REALbasic
Mark Nutter announced the release of RegExplorer v1.0, a $12 shareware programmer's utility for Mac OS X and Windows which is for creating and testing regular expressions quickly and easily. Designed for (and with) REALbasic 5.5, it supports the full range of standard regular expressions, and makes it easy to rapidly develop and test regex's for both searching, and search-and-replace operations, using RB's built-in RegEx class.
HTTPSocket Upload via POST Demo
Mark Nutter also has posted his example on uploading a file using an HTTP POST request, something I've been meaning to do a tutorial on for quite a while. It's free to download and free to use, as are the LongTask classes (which it uses to display the progress bar for the uploads).
Made With REALbasic
Net Tool Box v3.1 - The premier networking utility for Mac OS X
Designed for everyone from networking professionals and software and web developers to enthusiasts and educators, Net Tool Box is the 'swiss-army knife' of networking tools. With over two dozen tools uniquely integrated in one application, Net Tool Box makes previously laborious, complicated tasks a synch, easing your workload and letting you get on with what's important. Net Tool Box includes: Mapper, Ping & Ping Scan, DNS Tools, IP Terminals, Internt Tools, Traceroute, Port Scan and Service Scan, Netstat, Whois, Traffic Watcher, Bonjour Tools, ARP Table Viewer, and Network Statistics. Net Tool Box version 3.1 is available now for download as a free demo. Single-user licenses are available to purchase online for £20.00 ($35.00 approx.). Multi-user licenses are also available at discount prices.
August 10, 2005
REAL Software News
Entry Level Tech Writer and Tester Positions Available
REAL Software is looking for an entry level tech writer and tester. Geoff Pearlman, CEO of REAL Software, writes: "You should know REALbasic very well and be prepared to provide a sample that shows your technical writing abilities. Experience with technical writing, FrameMaker or InDesign and on-line training content creation is a plus. If you have questions or would like to submit your resume and writing sample, please email me off list." For the tester, David Grogono (Product Manager) writes: "As REAL Software continues to grow and expand we are looking to hire another tester. This is an entry level position and ideally we'd like to find someone willing to relocate to Austin, TX."
REALbasic Development
RBUnit v2.0 - Unit Testing Framework
RBUnit Version 2.0 features a completely redesigned testing API that is extraordinarily easy to use. In addition, RBUnit now has thorough online help with a tutorial to get you started. RBUnit is "unit testing made simple" for REALbasic. RBUnit 2.0 is available for REALbasic 5.5.x and REALbasic 2005. It works on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. RBUnit is available in two editions, Trial (FREE) and Professional ($49.95). It is a free upgrade for existing RBUnit Professional customers.
Display Overlord Plugin v1.1 - Display Management
The Display Overlord plugin adds numerous global methods to REALbasic that control video display resolution, refresh rate, colour depth, and brightness (gamma). Additional methods are provided to gather display information such as available modes, current screen geometry/depth, and refresh rates. Version 1.1 adds native Mach-O support, and a few new options that can come in handy if more advanced display manipulation is required through declares (when using fullsceen OpenGL for example). Display Overlord is free and open source with support for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X.
StringUtils Module v1.3 - The String Functions REALbasic Should Have
The StringUtils module is a public-domain module of string functions. Methods to reverse a string, remove certain characters, convert a string to hex, handle fields containing quotes, measure the similarity of two strings, SoundEx, EditDistance, and Double Metaphone algorithms. Version 1.3 improves the speed of InStrReverseB and fixes a bug in sprintf that caused incorrect results when non-ASCII characters were used in the format string.
FTP Suite v4.1.2
FTP Suite is professional software library that allows REALbasic applications to implement the FTP protocol. First released in November 2002, FTP Suite is the only full-featured and professionally supported FTP Solution available to REALbasic developers. FFTP Suite 4.1.2 fixes a bug that prevented the StartGetDirList Smart Sequence and the GetDirList Smart Command from working properly with some FTP servers. The upgrade is available as a full package or an updater. FTP Suite ranges from $34.99 for hobbyists to $79.99 for professionals.
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