Letters

  Here's this month's installment of letters. To put your letter in this section, just e-mail it on over to dantheox@aol.com. I actually got a ton of letters this month! Wow! Keep 'em coming!


I just read the article on the tab panels in the new issue. I wondered what are the bevel buttons to what they refer. Is it in a new version of RB? I have a very old release. - “CHRP”

  The Bevel Buttons require DR2r17 or higher. You can use the tab panel concepts from that article in any version of RB though.


I have read your work in the RB Monthly and applaud your work. Are you planning an issue on the database features? If so, could you share early drafts? I'm really befuddled. If not, would you conisder it? - Darin H. Duphorne

  You're in luck...It's the cover this month!


I'm trying to write a platfrom game in RB but I am having a few problems. I found your comments about "paint tile" in RB's sprite surface very helpful, but I was woundering how you would use an image/pict insted of solid color. Will you be covering more about sprites in future issues of RBM? Thanks for you help. - Daniel

  Since you're given a graphics object to work with in the DrawTile event, you could simply use DrawPicture to tile a picture. Also, if you're making a platform game, you might want to check out ActionSurface, which is at the RB Café.


How do you access the REALbasic Monthly magazine? I click on the cover page or date and get a picture of the cover and a pull down menu that provides categories. I select the category, and nothing happens. I am using MS Explorer 4.5 as my browser. - Bob

  Many readers have reported that the popupmenu doesn't work with IE 4.5. Lowering your security level occasionally helps, or you could switch to IE 4.0.1 or even Netscape. Also, this issue uses a new layout, which doesn't use JavaScript for navigation.


My beta-testers (which are learning RB) both have a kind of big mac with tons of ram and they have tons of peripherals and hard disks. Now, I looked in the letters part of RB monthly: someone was saying that he was dl at 20k/sec. I have a performa 603e/160 with 32Meg of ram, one 2Gig hard disk and a 28.8 modem. I consider it is enough for what I do. Am I the only one to have such a small thing? Do all RB developers have a "big" mac with huge amounts of ram and super fast connections, and am I the only one to be happy about a "normal" mac :-)? I think you should do a survey to find out what kind of mac RB developers have. - Louis Chartrand

  You're far from alone! I use a Powerbook 3400/240, which has specs that are only slightly better than your computer's. And before I got my PowerBook, I used a 33Mhz '040 w/ a 500 Meg HD, and 8 Megs of RAM. Boy was RB slow on that thing!


Nice site, thanks for the effort. However, I thought you'd want to know: it doesn't seem to like Internet Explorer 4.5. When I select a section of from the popup list, nothing happens. Works fine w/ Netscape, though. - Peter Verlander

  That makes two...


Neat idea! I bought RB a while back, but hadn't done much with it. When an opportunity came along, though, I revved it up again. I've got a few RB-related questions, but I'll save those until I see whether they've been answered. One RBMonthly question, though, I couldn't find the answer to: Is REALbasic Monthly available on a subscription basis? Can we have it delivered to our eMailboxes every month? And a suggestion: You have a popup to select the section to jump to, but how about another one to jump to another issue? That would be great for newbies like myself, who want to read all the Tips. Thanks! - “Saint John”

  I'm planning on starting a mailing list that will inform all of its subscribers when a new issue of RBM comes out, and when it's available for downloading. Also, I'll probably be making a massive index of all the RBM articles when we have our first anniversary.


I read your editorial, and have some comments on both of your "opinions-of-the-month"! Word 5.1 is unquestionably the best WP yet produced by anyone (loath as I am to praise anything MS). All versions (and every copy of every version) after that should be burned—even landfills are too good an end. Printed manuals? I have just purchsed RB 1.1. As a total newbie with almost no programming knowledge, am in small boat in a large sea (but I'm having the time of my life!). Without printed manuals would definitely be at bottom of ocean. On-screen versions are useless when you have to hunt and peck for info. Mind you the manuals are pretty awful—not for what info they contain (which is fairly well written), but for the info not included. Another regretable classic case of manuals written by those in the know, without reference to those not in the know. Shortcuts—oh yes.... where are they all?! I agree, it's a wierd and frustrating omission. A question—I have Hotline, but simply cannot locate the cafe?? Any clues? Your mag (and site) are terrific on all counts. - Michael Young

  The RB café is at cafe.realbasic.com, and I'm glad to see that someone agrees with my views on manuals and Word!


I read the cover story in January's RB Monthly and I noticed that in the picture of the listbox, the font in the column heading is Geneva. I haven't managed to change the font of these column headings. Could you tell me how to do this? – Amar Sagoo

  At that point, I was running Kaleidoscope, and Geneva 9 was my System font. So, I wasn't changing that through any means RB offers. However, RB now uses the same font for headings as it does for the list.


Hey, I read the new RBM yesterday. Why do you always act like EVERYONE uses DR2? It's not even a freakin' BETA yet, and here you're touting it's features without even a little "by the way...".

  RBM is a magazine about RB programming, and is mostly about new features. At this point, new features means DR2. Also, I covered DR1, so I'm used to covering the latest versions. Once again, that means DR2.

Great tips section this month though. Goto make things a LOT easier for me. - Matthew Hershberger

  Thanks!