September 21, 2005

REALbasic Development

SimpleWindowMenu, MacWindowMenu Projects
Charles Yeomans released two projects, SimpleWindowMenu and MacWindowMenu which implement different versions of (guess what?) window menus. MacWindowMenu is a total rewrite of the WindowMenu project that provides a window menu for Mac OS applications, with look and feel remarkably like that of the standard Carbon window menu. It is substantially simpler, requiring no subclassing of windows unless you want more control over which windows appear in the menu, and is fully localized. SimpleWindowMenu is an example project demonstrating the implementation of a simple window menu.

GraphPro v2.5 - Graphing Classes for REALbasic
GraphPro is a set of flicker-free graphing classes for REALbasic with a very large feature set. 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. The main feature of 2.5 is a new horizontal column bar graph.

p3DDraw Classes
The p3DDraw classes help those that want to create psuedo 3D graphics on a Canvas Control. With the code you can draw psuedo 3D objects based upon a 3 point placement; The first two points toset the basic shape and the third point sets the psuedo 3D effect. All the drawing is done using the REALbasic 'DrawRect', DrawOval' and 'DrawLine' functions, no 3D function calls used. The class supports drawing cubes, wedges, pyramids, cones, and cylinders with other additional features.

Monkeybread Software Plugin v5.3
Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any bigger, it does. Version 5.3 of the MBS plugin comprises a collection of several plug-in parts which extend the REALbasic development environment with over 500 classes and 4 controls featuring over 10,000 documented functions. The plug-ins require REALbasic 3.5 or newer. Also required are 75 MB hard disc space and around 16 MB of RAM. While all plug-in parts compile on Mac OS 8.x, Mac OS 9.x, Mac OS X and Windows, each function may depend on additional system requirements to work successfully. Some plugin parts support Linux. Plugin licenses are available for the year 2005 for 40 Euro for private/educational and 80 Euro for company/business.

Mighty Mouse Support Classes
The popular Mighty Mouse from Apple is amazing, but it does require some extra work from developers in some cases. Tom Benson wrote some code to handle horizontal scrolling with the Mighty Mouse. The downside to using this is that you need to handle scroll events on a "per window" basis. I.E the window gains a ScrollHorizontal and ScrollVertical Event. You need to check (using a method provided) which control the mouse is currently in and handle any scrolling activity inside the windows event.

VideoOut Plugin v1.2
The VideoOut Plugin, based on QuickTime Video Output Components enables RB programmers to output DV and DVCPRO video streams via the FireWire port (also known as iLink or IEEE-1394) of your Macintosh and Windows computers. New in this version of the plugin is its compatibility with RB2005 for MacIntosh and Windows, and the addition of a novel method that will allow switching movies, without destruction and reastablishing ownership of the VOut. The SwitchMovie method requires the connection be established already and it will redetermine the software settings internally as much as possible.

iList Data v3.0
Lakewood Studios today (September 7th) released iList Data 3.0, a full-featured single-user database application built on the new REALbasic database engine, REALSQLDatabase (which is based on SQLite). Quickly build multimedia catalogs, to do lists, inventory databases, and other data management solutions. Create databases for daily use at home, educational use at school, and business use at work. iList Data's benefits include integrated graphing, user designed record editors, ten find modes, and batch editing. Right now you can get iList Data for $49 US until October 1st.