StyledText Class in REALbasic

Because the TextArea already has selection style attributes, the StyledText class honors that information. This means that you can set the style information using the selection methods that are available within the TextArea class, and they will be reflected when getting StyleRun information (and vice versa). Not all of the style attributes for selections in the TextArea class are available in the StyleRun class, such as Outline, Condense, Shadow, and Extend. These were supported only on Mac OS “classic”.

StyledText Class example in REALbasic

The following example uses the methods of the StyledText class to mark up and align text and display it in a TextArea. In order for the styled text to display, you must turn on the Multiline and Styled properties of the TextArea.

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Dim Text As String  // text to be displayed in TextArea
Dim st,ln As Integer  // start and length values of a paragraph
 
//define four paragraphs in Text
Text = "This is the text that we are going to save " _
+"into our file from the TextArea."+EndofLine _
+"Isn't that interesting?"+EndofLine _
+"Man, I sure do love using RB to take care of my projects."+EndofLine _
+"That's because the RS Engineering staff is just so awesome!"
 
TextArea1.StyledText.Text = text //four paragraphs in Text
TextArea1.StyledText.Bold(5, 2) = True
TextArea1.StyledText.TextColor(5, 2) = &cFF0000 //bold and red
TextArea1.StyledText.Size( 7, 10) = 16
TextArea1.StyledText.Underline(12, 4) = True //16 pt underline
TextArea1.StyledText.Size(100, 4) = 18
TextArea1.StyledText.TextColor(100, 4) = &cFF00FF //18 pt and Magenta
TextArea1.StyledText.Font(0, Len(text) ) = "Comic Sans MS"
 
//center aliign second paragraph
TextArea1.StyledText.ParagraphAlignment(1)=Paragraph.AlignCenter 
//set this paragraph in Helveticta, 18 pt bold, red
//first get the start and length values for this paragraph...
st=TextArea1.StyledText.Paragraph(1).StartPos
ln=TextArea1.StyledText.Paragraph(1).Length+1
 
//next apply attributes...
TextArea1.StyledText.Bold(st,ln)=True
TextArea1.StyledText.Font(st,ln)="Helvetica"
TextArea1.StyledText.Size(st,ln)=18
TextArea1.StyledText.TextColor(st,ln)=&cFF0000

Save StyledText to file in REALbasic

The following code, appended to the end of the previous method, saves the styled text to disk in RTF format. It assumes that the File Type Set, “TextTypes” has one item, TextRTF, that defines the RTF file type

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Dim s As TextOutputStream
Dim f As Folderitem
 
f=GetSaveFolderItem(TextTypes.TextRtf,"TestSaveRTF")
s=TextOutputStream.Create(f)
s.Write TextArea1.StyledText.RTFData
s.Close

Speak Method in REALbasic

Speak takes a string (or any variant that can be expressed as a string) and uses the Windows or Macintosh text-to-speech engine to speak the text. The speech is asynchronous, allowing normal program flow to continue. By default, subsequent calls to Speak before the first call has finished will queue up and speak after the completion of the previous call. If the optional interrupt flag is used and set to True, the previous Speak calls will be stopped immediately. Speak is not supported on Linux.

Speak Method example

We can for example read the text available in TextArea Control. I hope this example is clear to understand. If you like you can change some settings (like system voice, reading speed etc.) in System Preferences -> Speech. I think that Windows offers also this kind of options somewhere.

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if TextArea1.Text < > "" then
  speak TextArea1.Text
else
  speak "Please insert some text in TextArea because it's empty"
end if

MoviePlayer Control info

Windows uses the Windows Movie Player to play movies and Mac OS uses the QuickTime player. On Linux, the MoviePlayer uses GStreamer by default (it requires version 0,10+) and uses Xine if GStreamer is not available.

The Controller property dictates how the movie controls (if any) will be displayed. Passing 0 (zero) means that there will be no user controls available. Passing 1 means that a movie icon or badge will be displayed in the lower left corner of the movie area instead of the controller. When this badge is clicked by the user, the badge disappears and the regular movie controls appear at the bottom of the movie frame. Passing 2 displays the regular movie controls.

Checking if QuickTime is installed in system

Here you can find how to check if QuickTime is installed in system.

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if System.QuickTime.Installed then
MsgBox "QuickTime detected!"
end if

Load a movie or MP3 to REALbasic MoviePlayer Control

This example loads a movie called REALbasicMovie.mp4 from the current directory into MoviePlayer1 and plays it.

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Dim f As FolderItem
 
f = GetFolderItem("REALbasicMovie.avi")
 
MoviePlayer1.Movie = f.OpenAsMovie
MoviePlayer1.Play

Get current MoviePlayer position

Display the current video or audio position from MoviePlayer Control.

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Dim p As Double //Double is a number that can contain a decimal value, i.e., a real number.
 
p = MoviePlayer1.MovieController.Controls.CurrentPosition

Add Toolbar Control to REALbasic Project

We start this tutorial with adding Toolbar Control to our REALbasic Project. We do this by clicking on Add Toolbar button available in Project Tab.

Add items (buttons) to Toolbar

To add items to REALbasic Toolbar control we double click on Toolbar1 in Project Tab and we should be in place similar to screenshot below. Now click on Add Tool item five times and set (in item Property and Value) for ToolItem1 Style = 0 Push button, ToolItem2 Style = 1 Separator, ToolItem3 Style = 2 Toggle button, ToolItem4 = 5 Space, ToolItem5 = 3 Dropdown button. You can also set the buttons text in Caption (I called items after the name of style). You can also add some graphics to the items. To do this look for icon property for selected Toolbar item.

Add Toolbar to Window Class

The last thing before writing the code we will insert the Toolbar Control from Window1 GUI builder Control Panel. Go to Window1 and drag and drop from All Controls Toolbar1 to our application Window.

Toolbar Control item actions

To make something happen when the user will click on one of Toolbar items we must add some code to Toolbar1 Sub Actions () in Code Editor. We can do this by Item Name or by Item Caption. In this step we will use the first option.

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select case item
 
case me.ToolItem1
  MsgBox "Push button item was pressed"
case me.ToolItem3
  MsgBox "Toggle button item was pressed"
 
end select

There can be a problem when you like to use item style Dropdown button… To get it work we must create a new MenuItem and attach it to this button style. Go to Toolbar1 Sub Open () and insert there:

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Dim myMenu as New MenuItem
Dim myMenu1 as New MenuItem
Dim myMenu2 as New MenuItem
 
MyMenu1.Text="REALbasic CIty"
MyMenu2.Text="qbap"
 
MyMenu.Append myMenu1
MyMenu.Append myMenu2
 
me.ToolItem4.DropdownMenu = myMenu

Now we should make some events when the user will click on any MenuItem in Dropdown button. Go to Toolbar1 Sub DropDownMenuAction () and enter:

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select case hititem.Text
 
case "qbap"
  MsgBox "You chose qbap"
case "REALbasic City"
  MsgBox "You chose REALbasic City"
 
end select

Changing ProgressBar value

If we like change a ProgressBar Control value to 50% we simply use this code. The default ProgressBar.Maximum is 100 so a half from this is 50.

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ProgressBar1.Value = 50

HTMLViewer page load progress

More practical example for using ProgressBar Control is displaying a page load progress from HTMLViewer control. To do this go to code editor and in HTMLViewer Sub DocumentProgressChanged (URL As String, percentageComplete As Integer) enter:

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ProgressBar1.Value = percentageComplete

Barber pole

To display a barber pole set the maximum property to 0.

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ProgressBar1.Maximum = 0

What can we do with Timer Class?

The answer for this question is very easy – everything we like. For example we can use it for closing our application after 10 minutes from start, we can monitor some changes (keydown events, files changes), count time and speaking in one word one more time executing some code after a specified period of time (Period: 1000 = 1 second) .

Shutdown application after 10 seconds

Add to Window1 a Timer Class from Control Tab and set the Period Property to 10 000. Change also the Mode to 1- Single (this will start only once the Timer). Double click on Timer Control (Timer Sub Action()) and enter there:

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Quit

Keydown events

The following code in the Action event of a Timer detects whether the Up, Down, Left, or Right arrow keys are pressed and display you a info in StaticText1 Control. Please remember to change the Mode Property to 2 – Multiple and the Period to for example 10.

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if Keyboard.AsyncKeyDown(123) then
StaticText1.Text = "you have pressed left arrow key"
end if
if Keyboard.AsyncKeyDown(124) then
StaticText1.Text = "you have pressed right arrow key"
end if
if Keyboard.AsyncKeyDown(125) then
StaticText1.Text = "you have pressed down arrow key"
end if
if Keyboard.AsyncKeyDown(126) then
StaticText1.Text = "you have pressed up arrow key"
end if

HTMLViewer with WebKit engine on Linux

HTMLViewer use default libgtkhtml library to render HTML on Linux… but there is a option to use WebKit. To do this simply install on your system libwebkit-1.0-1. If you like you can make a class that will install this library automatically.

Creating one line browser in REALbasic

To create a our web browser add to the Window HTMLViewer control. Set its LockLeft, LockTop, LockRight, and LockBottom properties so that it resizes as the user resizes the window. Now add a PushButton control and insert the code:

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HTMLViewer1.LoadURL(http://tutspolis.com)

Opening link in new Window

If you like to have a option to open a link in new window add to HTMLViewer Function NewWindow() in code editor this code.

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 Dim w as New Window1 //name of Window where is our HTMLViewer control
 
 Title = "new Window" //title property of new window
 w.Show //show the window
 Return w.HTMLViewer1 //render html

Page load progress in ProgresBar control

HTMLViewer can easy display the progress of page loading in ProgresBar control. You can make this using few lines of code in HTMLViewer Sub DocumentProgressChanged.

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if percentageComplete = -1 then //if it cannot be determined
ProgressBar1.Maximum = 0 //display indeterminate progress
else
ProgressBar1.Maximum = 100
end if
ProgressBar1.Value = percentageComplete

Adding text to a TextArea

Add to the Window PushButton Control and double click on it. Then enter there the code below. It’s simply like in TextField.

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TextArea.Text = "REALbasic City sample text"

Reading text from a TextArea

Reading the content from TextArea is extreme easy like this s = TextArea.Text. Here you got a example that shows Message Box:

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Dim s As String
Dim d as New MessageDialog //declare the MessageDialog object
Dim b as MessageDialogButton //handling the result
 
s = TextArea.Text
d.Message = s
b = d.ShowModal

Changing selected text in TextArea

Every text editor has a option to change the style of the text. Here you can look how you can simple change the selected text in TextArea control to new color and new font with bold style. Add the code to PushButton Sub Action()

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Dim Black As Color
 
Black = RGB(0,0,0)
 
TextArea.SelTextFont = "Arial"
TextArea.SelBold = true
TextArea.SelTextColor = Black

Changing string with TextArea

We can also change the text in string ex. by finding the word or by putting the cursor on indicated line. We will change the word “my” form text string by putting the cursor on 8 position and changing the next 2 letters to bold and red color.

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Dim text As String
 
text = "This is my string"
 
TextArea.StyledText.Text = text
 
TextArea.StyledText.Bold( 8, 2 ) = true
TextArea.StyledText.TextColor( 8, 2 ) = &cFF0020

Using Mask

Simply select TextArea in GUI builder Tab and then in Property and Value find Behavior -> Mask and place there ex. ###-##-####. You can also add a code in TextArea Sub Open(). Go to Window1 code editor Controls -> TextArea -> Open.

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TextArea.Mask = "###-##-####" //US Social Security number
TextArea.Mask = "(###) ###-####" //US Phone number, with area code

Mask Character in TextArea

# – The single digit placeholder. Entry optional. If this position is left blank in the mask, it will be rendered as a space. Plus and minus signs are allowed. The user can type only a digit character in this position.
. – Decimal placeholder. The decimal placeholder that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
, – Thousands separator. The thousands separator that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
: – Time separator. The time separator that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
/ – Date separator. The date separator that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
\ – Mask escape character. Treat the next character in the mask as a literal. The escape character enables you to use the ‘#’, ‘&’, ‘A’, ‘?’ (and so on) characters in the mask. The escapted character is treated as a literal (formatting) character.
& Character or space placeholder. Valid values are the ASCII characters 32-126 and the non-ASCII characters 128-255.
C – Character or space placeholder, where entry is optional. It operates like the ‘&’ placeholder.
> – Convert all the characters that follow to uppercase. Uppercasing works beyond the ASCII range where appropriate, e.g., ü becomes Ü.
< – Convert all the characters that follow to lowercase. Lowercasing works beyond the ASCII range where appropriate, e.g., Ü becomes ü.
A – Alphanumeric character placeholder, where entry is mandatory.
For example, the spec “AAA” specifies three alphanumeric characters.
a -Alphanumeric character placeholder, where entry is optional.
0 – Any single digit between 0 and 9. Entry is required.
9 – Digit or space where entry is optional.
? – Alphabetic placeholder. Entry is optional.
L – Alphabetic placeholder. Entry is required. Any literal. All other symbols are displayed as literals for formatting purposes.
~ – Reserved for future use. If you use “~” it will trigger an exception error. Use \~ instead.

Using TextArea Property and Value

When you select TextArea in GUI builder you can change some Property and Value for this control. We have got there position properties (width, height), appearance (text color, border), font (text size, text font), initial state (default text), behaviors (mask, read only) or database binding. Please play with them for a wile to understand what is happening when you change the values.

Adding text to a TextField

For example add to the Window PushButton Control and double click on it (at a glance PushButton Sub Action()). Then enter there the code below:

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TextField.Text = "REALbasic City sample text"

Reading text from a TextField

Reading the content from TextField is extreme easy like this s = TextField1.Text. Here you got a example that shows Message Box:

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Dim s As String
Dim d as New MessageDialog //declare the MessageDialog object
Dim b as MessageDialogButton //handling the result
 
s = TextField1.Text
d.Message=s
b=d.ShowModal

Using Mask

Simply select TextField in GUI builder Tab and then in Property and Value find Behavior -> Mask and place there ex. ###-##-####. You can also add a code in TextField Sub Open(). Go to Window1 code editor Controls -> TextField -> Open.

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TextField.Mask = "###-##-####" //US Social Security number
TextField.Mask = "(###) ###-####" //US Phone number, with area code

Mask Character in TextField

# – The single digit placeholder. Entry optional. If this position is left blank in the mask, it will be rendered as a space. Plus and minus signs are allowed. The user can type only a digit character in this position.
. – Decimal placeholder. The decimal placeholder that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
, – Thousands separator. The thousands separator that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
: – Time separator. The time separator that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
/ – Date separator. The date separator that is actually used is specified in the user’s International settings. The character is treated as a literal (formatting) character for masking purposes.
\ – Mask escape character. Treat the next character in the mask as a literal. The escape character enables you to use the ‘#’, ‘&’, ‘A’, ‘?’ (and so on) characters in the mask. The escapted character is treated as a literal (formatting) character.
& Character or space placeholder. Valid values are the ASCII characters 32-126 and the non-ASCII characters 128-255.
C – Character or space placeholder, where entry is optional. It operates like the ‘&’ placeholder.
> – Convert all the characters that follow to uppercase. Uppercasing works beyond the ASCII range where appropriate, e.g., ü becomes Ü.
< – Convert all the characters that follow to lowercase. Lowercasing works beyond the ASCII range where appropriate, e.g., Ü becomes ü.
A – Alphanumeric character placeholder, where entry is mandatory.
For example, the spec “AAA” specifies three alphanumeric characters.
a -Alphanumeric character placeholder, where entry is optional.
0 – Any single digit between 0 and 9. Entry is required.
9 – Digit or space where entry is optional.
? – Alphabetic placeholder. Entry is optional.
L – Alphabetic placeholder. Entry is required. Any literal. All other symbols are displayed as literals for formatting purposes.
~ – Reserved for future use. If you use “~” it will trigger an exception error. Use \~ instead.

Using TextField Property and Value

When you select TextField in GUI builder you can change some Property and Value for this control. We have got there position properties (width, height), appearance (text color, border), font (text size, text font), initial state (default text), behaviors (mask, read only) or database binding. Please play with them for a wile to understand what is happening when you change the values.

List of Alex Restrepo classes

Custom EditField – A highly customizable, 100% REALBasic Canvas-based EditField.
Alternating ListBox – A listbox that alternates the colors of the rows.
Convolutions – The application will apply a 3×3 convolution kernel to an image and display the results, very slow and unoptimized.
Custom Cells – A listbox with custom cells allows you to have buttons, progressbars and just about anything you want inside a listbox cell.
Custom Frames – This is a little experiment, and an old one as well, where I was building little “windows” within a canvas to display different types of information.
Custom TabPanel – A Canvas-based tab panel that mimics the tabpanel in the RealBasic IDE (even with animations!).
Custom Toolbar – An OSX-style toolbar, useful when you want to have a consistent toolbar in your cross-platform applications, it has some of the features available in OSX native toolbars like button reordering, although given the buffered nature of OSX the reordering animation looks a lot better in Windows.
DatabaseUpdate – A simple class to build “Update” sql statements, handling the formating for you.
Dir View – A listbox subclass that will display hierarchically the contents of a directory.
ExcelWritter – A listbox extension that saves the contents of the listbox as an excel file, by calling listbox.saveAsExcelFile(folderItem).
GraphCanvas – A canvas that will draw an x,y line graph of one or multiple “datasets”, you can modify almost every aspect of the resulting graph. Look at the included demo for an example.
Grid Canvas – A canvas with a variable-size grid, each cell gets its own CellClick and CellPaint events. It can be used for a game map editor, but you may find it useful for something else.
Indeterminate Animation – A canvas that will display a series of pictures (stored as a single picture, one frame on top of the next) as a looping animation.
Inspector – A floating window that mimics the RealBasic properties window, allows you to see (and edit) the contents of a dictionary, there’s also an interface that you can implement to “inspect” your classes.
Library Listbox – A custom listbox that mimics the appearance of the “library” listboxes found in applications such as iTunes.
Listbox Printer – A simple class that will print the contents of a listbox.
Picture Viewer – A ContainerControl that displays a picture. The user can change the scaling of the picture, or fit the picture to the actual control size. Click and drag in order to scroll the picture is also available.
PreviewCanvas(iPhotostyle) – This canvas allows you to display previews of any object that implements the included “PreviewableObject” interface, the previews can be then scaled and selected.
Reflection Canvas – This canvas displays an image and then mirrors and fades the image horizontally, resulting in an interesting effect, like the video snapshots you see in iTunes.
Round Slider – A slider replacement, with a round knob. You can use any of 3 different sizes: normal, small and tiny, has a transparent background and fires MouseUp events, it also has an AllowCancel property, to return the slider to its original value when the MouseUp event was fired outside the slider.
Selection Canvas – When the canvas is set to accept clicks, it will create a closed selection specified by the mouse clicks, you can then move, delete or add “Control Points”.
SyntaxHighlightEditField – An expandable, multiple-language Syntax Highlighter EditField. You can easily define Highlight Definitions for different languages, included in the download are the definitions for C, Java, Objective-C, RealBasic and XML.
Telnet Socket – simple Telnet support for REALbasic
TreeView – A TreeLike structure and a ListBox capable of displaying it, including lines between parent and child nodes.

More information

..Nowhere.. Alex Restrepo