Running REALbasic

When we start REALbasic on Mac or Windows or Linux we will see this window. On active TAB Window1 we can use controls and its properties to build GUI (graphical user interface) for our applications. Depending on the operating system the appearance of controls will be different. In Windows we will have windows like controls (buttons, windows skins) , on Mac OS we will have mac like controls etc.

Property and Value

Property in GUI builder is a place where we can change some options for current selected control or window. In case of selected Window we have a options like width, height, title, backcolor etc. Of course we can also change the values even if our applications is running. But we must add this values to our code. We will learn this later.

Controls in REALbasic

In Controls list we can find all available with REALbasic components to create our software. There are such Controls as Canvas (for using images), PushButton (simply a button), MoviePlayer (for loading movies) etc. To use each Control we can simply drag and drop it to our application Window. Some of them (example IPCSocket) are not visual components like ListBox but powerful intermediaries in using ex. protocols, cpu threads etc. Each Control has got its own properties and values.

Creating a simple application in REALbasic

OK, we know so much so we will try to create our first easy application. Drag and drop on Window1 controls: PushButton and TextArea. Now double click on PushButton control. PushButton1 Sub Action()

Editing code in REALbasic

We are now in REALbasic code editor witch looks like this. In others tutorials we will lean how to use it and now simply enter the code below in Controls -> PushButton1 -> Action.

1

TextArea1.Text = "REALbasic City"

Project Tab in REALbasic

I almost forgot Project Tab in REALbasic. We can create here new Window, add a Class, add Module, add Folder with files, images etc. add Menu Bar and Toolbar. We will use this Tab in other tutorials. Every element in Project Tab has got own properties and values.

Running the application

To check if our application is running correctly we can simply press the green Run button in REALbasic Main Toolbar. As you can see on each operating system the application is working good. The only difference is the GUI style.

Professional Edition Features include:

* Mac, Linux and Windows versions available.
* Networking with support for TCP, UDP, Web (HTTP), Email (POP3 and SMTP), and SOAP.
* Includes REALSQLDatabase for single user applications.
* Extensive support for bitmap and vector graphics.
* XML support.
* Extendable via third party plugins.
* Built-in debugger.
* Read and write files.
* Regular expressions.
* Support for Apple events, Keychain, Spotlight, the Dock and the Address Book (Mac version only).
* Support for Quicktime.
* Available in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
* Cross-platform compilation
* Extended database support
* Database encryption
* Container controls
* Console applications
* Secure network communications via Secure Socket Layers (SSL)
* AutoDiscovery class
* Cross-platform remote debugging
* ServerSocket control
* Get answers from the experts

You can download a free Trial version of REALbasic Professional Edition from REAL Software website.

Plug-in available in Monkeybread package

Audio – Midi/Audio (includes license for Midi classes in Windows and Mac OS X part)
CheckCache – Warns you about a broken plugin cache.
Cocoa – Cocoa classes: AppleRemote, StatusItem, HTMLViewer extensions (WebKit), SpeechSynthesizer and SpeechRecognizer, Save/OpenPanel, DiscRecording, InstantMessageing (iChat), PDFKit, SpellChecking and Addressbook.
Compression – zlib compression and gzip file handling
ComputerControl – The plugin to simulate keyboard and mouse input and do gamma changes.
Controls – Controls like Button, Rectangle, RoundRectangle, Oval and Line.
CURL – Download and Upload class. Protocols: ftp, ftps, http, https, gopher, telnet, dict, ldap and file.
DataTypes – Various data type classes like stacks, maps (dictionary) and sets.
Dongle – Unikey, HASP and Rockey dongles
EyeOne – Color Measurement using the x-rite Eye-One Devices.
GIF – Read and write GIF files.
ImageMagick GraphicMagick – Create, edit, and compose bitmap images using the ImageMagick library. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (over 100) including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.
Java – Use Java classes in Realbasic. And access databases using JDBC from REALbasic Standard.
JPEG – Read and write JPEG images in RGB and CMYK color space. Handles extensions like ICC Profiles or XMP metadata, resolutions, corrupted jpeg files and lossless tranformations (rotate, mirror and others).
LCMS – Little color management engine. (like ColorSync on Mac, but this is crossplatform)
LargePicture – Handle large pictures with using virtual memory
Leopard – Mac OS X 10.5 related classes: iCal classes, Time Machine related backup functions, PictureTaker panel, Slideshows, Dictionary Service and QuickLook.
Mac – Mac OS only stuff: Drag and Drop, KeyChain, AppleScript, Colorsync, Alias, Apple Filing Protocol, Clipboard and Speech.
MacOSX – Mac OS X only stuff: DVD Playback, Growl, CoreImage, CoreAudio, LaunchServices, ImageCapture, Loginitems, Bonjour, CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics
MacScripting – Control various Mac OS X applications directly from REALbasic.
Main – for all registered users
Network- Network related classes like AppleTalk, DNS lookup, TCP and UDP Sockets.
OCR – Cross platform optical text recognition based on the Tesseract OCR engine.
Overlay – Display windows with full alpha channel.
PDF – Ghostscript and iSEQQuickPDF. To use iSEQQuickPDF you need an extra license from www.isedquickpdf.com.
PDFlib – PDFlib classes to create PDF files.
This plugin can be used with a commercial license for PDFLib or the open source license for PDFLib lite.
PHP - Run PHP scripts in Realbasic.
Picture – Icons, Screenshots and some picture effects
PNG – Read and Write PNG files.
QTKit – Cocoa classes for using QuickTime functions.
QuickTime – Extensions to Movie class and Movieplayer control. Export movies to a new format, import and export pictures and record audio/video.
RegEx – Regular Expressions with correct encoding handling
Thread – Preemptive threads in REALbasic. Using 800% CPU time on an eight core Mac Pro!
Tidy – Clean up HTML (or XML) code
Tiff – Read and write Tiff files. Handles ICC profiles, CMYK, Grayscale, Black/White and RGB images
USB – Classes for HID USB devices on Mac OS X and Windows.
Util – Utility plugin parts like encryption, string and memoryblock functions.
Win – Windows only classes for DDE, file and URL shortcuts, Speech, MCI, printer lists and HTMLViewer extensions.
XMP – Created and parse XMP metadata

MBS REALbasic Plugins price

Complete | 196 € (Commercial) | 98 € (Academic license)
DynaPDF | 299 € to 1499 € | Create, import and modify PDF files on Mac, Windows and Linux. Includes embedding of fonts and text extraction. Price is 599 € for Lite, 999 € for Pro and 1499 € for Enterprise. For academic license the price is 299 € for Lite, 499 € for Pro
ChartDirector | 199 € Professional charts for REALbasic | 99 € (Academic license)
SQL | 99 € Access SQL Databases: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, Informix, InterBase/Firebird, SQLBase, MySQL, PostgreSQL and ODBC and SQLite

There is also a option to buy plug-ins individually.

Monkeybread Software releases version 9.7

This release adds two new plugin parts. One to integrate the mobileMe (.mac) features into your application and another one to control the CUPS printing engine on Mac OS X and linux. This way you can print files on a printer directly. Also we added several new cocoa classes including a better integration in the future Cocoa REALbasic target. For compressions we not only have the zlib compression engine, but now also the BZip2 engine.

The plug-ins require REALbasic 2006r4 or newer. Also required are 500 MB hard disc space and around 64 MB of RAM in addition to the requirements of REALbasic and your operation system itself. While all plug-in parts compile on Mac OS X (universal), Linux and Windows, each function may depend on additional system requirements to work successfully.

Personal Edition Features include:

* Mac, Linux and Windows versions available.
* Networking with support for TCP, UDP, Web (HTTP), Email (POP3 and SMTP), and SOAP.
* Includes REALSQLDatabase for single user applications.
* Extensive support for bitmap and vector graphics.
* XML support.
* Extendable via third party plugins.
* Built-in debugger.
* Read and write files.
* Regular expressions.
* Support for Apple events, Keychain, Spotlight, the Dock and the Address Book (Mac version only).
* Support for Quicktime.
* Available in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

You can download a free Trial version of REALbasic Personal Edition from REAL Software website.

Watch it, learn it, enjoy it!
TUTSPOLIS Team