plist and plistDict classes for REALbasic

As you have already noticed, there are two classes used in plist. The plist class handles loading, saving, and error reporting while the plistDict class contains the data of the preferences file and all the methods to manipulate the data. When you download the ZIP file of plist Class you will get access to some REALbasic examples and a PDF documentation.

More informations

plist Class for REALbasic home page
Download plist Class for REALbasic

Preferences menu on Mac in REALbasic

To have your preferences menu appear under the application menu, all you have to do is make sure to create a super “PrefsMenuItem” of that menu, and REALbasic will take care of the rest. Go to Project Tab and click on MenuBar1. Now for example in Edit Menu Add Menu Item and name it Preferences. To display this submenu under the application menu go to it Super Property and enter there PrefsMenuItem.

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.

1
2
3
4
5

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

MagicSpeller for REALbasic

MagicSpeller allows you to use a dialog-based spell check system as well as an inline system that checks spelling as you type. Both options provide a customizable number of suggested corrections that are automatically prioritized to maximize accuracy. Inline correction highlights misspelled words as the user types. The dialog based option allows for correcting multiple text fields or strings all at one time.

MagicSpeller’s dialog-based spell correction allows for the correction of styled text fields. Corrected words automatically maintain the previously set style of misspelled words to make corrections effortless. Additionally, multiple fields of styled text can be checked all at once so corrections are efficient and convenient.

The MagicSpeller system is completely cross-platform compatible; supporting both the REALbasic IDE and project builds on Macintosh and Windows. Truly an easy solution to code once and compile for your platform of choice.

More informations

MagicSpeller for REALbasic home page
Download MagicSpeller 1.6 for REALbasic

Hide icon from Mac Dock application

First thing we must do before we start this tutorial is Building our REALbasic application. If it’s done then go to your compiled app folder and right click on icon. Now select Show Package Contents and go inside Contents folder. You should see there a file named Info.plist.

Copy the file Info.plist to your Desktop and change it permissions to read and write. You can do this by right clicking on it and selecting from the contextual menu Get Info. Now in Sharing & Permissions change access to Read and Write. If you like you can do this also by using a terminal command:

1

sudo chmod 464 /Desktop/REALbasic.app/Contents/Info.plist

Open Info.plist file from Desktop with your favorite Text Editor and add to end of dict some code. After making this change save the file.

1
2

<key>NSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

When it’s done replace the Info.plist (from Desktop) with the file available in Contents location /Desktop/REALbasic.app/Contents/Info.plist Now when you will run your application there will be no icon displayed in Dock. Hope you enjoy this tutorial and see you next time!

iSightCamera Class features

The video image can be displayed in a REALbasic Window or in a Canvas. You can adjust the size of the video image. You can adjust the ‘shutter speed’. By default, the live image runs as fast as your machine will allow. But if for some reason you want to use less cycles, you can slow how often the live image is captured. Errors in the class are logged to the Console. A message box will be displayed if you try and create an instance of the class and it fails. This can happen if you don’t have a camera or if the one you have is already in use.

More informations

iSightCamera Class home page
Download iSight Camera Class 1.0

Some old information from March

In August, REAL Software announced that Cocoa REALbasic would be in beta by the end of the first quarter of 2009 and shipping by the end of the second quarter. As they say… they are making excellent progress but the schedule for shipping a beta is going to conflict with the schedule for REALbasic 2009 R2 which is going to ship in mid-April.

Since REALbasic 2009 R3 is likely to be the release in which REAL Software ship Cocoa support, REAL Software will make Cocoa available for testing with the first R3 alpha release. If you are on REALbasic beta list email list, REAL Software will announce the alpha there most likely in the first two weeks of April. So we aren’t going to make the end of first quarter date but we will be close.

The transition from Carbon to Cocoa is a big one and REALbasic developers are sure we will all agree that the important thing is that it’s done right. While there will be some new features, REAL Software goal for the first release is compatibility with existing projects.

Fresh info about REALbasic 2009 Release 5

Geoff Perlman posted a comment on REAL Software blog with some new info about releasing REALbasic Cocoa update. There are some good and some bad informations.

The good thing is that REAL Software has only a few features left to implement. After that, there will need to be a period of testing and bug fixing. Unfortunately for this reason Cocoa will not ship with REALbasic 2009 Release 5. We can only keep our fingers crossed that we will see Cocoa update in Release 6.

PS.

When Cocoa update will be available for most of us, this won’t require any changes to our code. We will just choose a new option when we build our application. No learning form scratch required

What are notifications?

Notifications are a way for your applications to provide you with new information, without you having to switch from the application you’re already in. Growl is a very popular and powerful Mac OS system notification used by many kind of software (Firefox, Skype, Adium, Coda, Espresso, Transmission).

Growl REALbasic support

AppleScript is the easiest way to integrate Growl notification system with REALbasic. Simply run AppleScript Editor and enter there code available below. You can do this by tipping in Spotlight “AppleScript Editor” or go to Utilities folder in Applications and run AppleScript Editor. After copping the code to AppleScript Editor remove all comments from the code and click on Compile button. Now save the file on your Desktop and name it growl.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

on run {growlDescription, growlTitle} //parameters for data transfer
 
	tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
 
		set the allNotificationsList to ¬
			{"Notification"}
 
 
		set the enabledNotificationsList to ¬
			{"Notification"}
 
 
		register as application ¬
			"Our application name" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬ //name registered in Growl Application settings
			default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
			icon of application "Safari" //name of software in Application folder 
 
		notify with name ¬
			"Notification" title ¬
			growlTitle description ¬
			growlDescription application name "Our application name"
 
	end tell
 
end run

REALbasic and Apple Script support

This part of tutorial is also very easy. Drag and drop the growl.scpt file to your REALbasic Project Tab and next go to Code Editor. We will now use the script to inform user with Growl notification system that our REALbasic application is starting. In Event Handlers Sub Open () enter:

1

growl( "This software launched", "REALbasic City" ) // (description, title)

Download

Listbox Cell Background Paint

Everything what we need is a Listbox control available on Window1 class and a code in Listbox1 Function CellBackgroundPaint (). After compiling the project we will get a nice looking Listbox control that we can admire in our application.

1
2
3
4
5
6

if row mod 2 = 0 then
   g.ForeColor = &cFFFFFF // white color
else
   g.ForeColor = &cf3f7fb // blue color
end if
  g.FillRect 0,0, g.Width, g.Height

AirRadar description

Whether you are driving around looking for wireless networks, stuck in traffic, sitting on the beach, or if you are curious how strong your wireless signal is at home, AirRadar provides a more linear approach to network hunting. Setup a scan frequency, and have new open or closed networks have their name spoken, play alerts, or display notifications. Various other options allow you to customize your network list further, including assigning colors to best open networks and sound cues.

AirRadar Features

Functionality:

• Automatically scan on launch
• Play sounds after scanning, or for new networks
• Remember scan history
• Ad-hoc network scanning
• Adjust scan interval
• Set a maximum retention for out of scope networks
• Speak new network names
• Auto-join open networks with a good signal
• GROWL support
• Mark favourite networks
• Filter out networks
• Colorize networks based on status and type
• Graph network noise and signal strength
• Comment on networks
• Export network lists
• Join both open and closed networks
• Disconnect from a network without turning off AirPort

Information Retrieved:

• Ad-hoc status
• Beacon Interval
• CF Pollable Flag
• CF Poll Request Flag
• Channel
• Channel Agility Flag
• Encrypted Status
• Encryption Type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, None)
• Encryption Cipher (AES, TKIP)
• First Seen
• Last Seen
• MAC Address (BSSID)
• Managed Flag
• Miss Count
• Name
• Noise Level
• Reserved Flag
• PBCC Flag
• Signal Strength
• Average, Min, and Max Signal Strength
• Short Preamble Flag

More informations

AirRadar Home Page
Download AirRadar for Mac OS