| REALbasic 2.0 ships! |
After nearly nine months of beta testing, version two of REALbasic has finally shipped. For more on this momentous occasion, check out our special section. Also, 2.0.1 has already arrived, with a bunch of bug fixes.
| Foreign langauges of RB 2 |
In the DR2 release notes, it seems that most releases have "More Internationalization Strings Added" in them. What does this mean? Eventually, version 2 will become available in seven languages: Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and German. On another intersting note about versions of RB, it seems that RB will ship in retail in Australia!
| API ACCESS!! |
Much to everyone's surprise, an otherwise humble looking set of release notes for 2.0.1a4 included a feature that many people have been asking for for ages: API access. If you've got 2.0.1a4, you can simply write (in any piece of code), "Declare Sub <whatever> Lib <fragment> Alias <method in fragment's name> (parameters) as type", and <whatever> will become a valid statement. What does this mean? Essentially, RB became a heck of a lot more expandable in an instant. This was possible before (by using shared libs—see our January issue), but this is significantly more convenient. Though I won't guarantee it, this will probably be next month's cover story.
| Ah-choo! Gestalt-heit! |
The main new ability in 2.0.1a2 was the Gestalt abilities. Check out our Gestalt article for more info on this useful new feature.
| Be gone Locals and Stack! |
Although they can be extremely useful, the Locals and Stack windows (the ones that pop up in the background whenever you run your program) are usually annoyances. Along with obscuring all of the major dekstop icons, these windows are simply ugly. However, after complaining from many people going back to the DR1s, these windows are now optional. If you run a program, and close one of these windows, it will remain closed the next time you run a program. Now only if the Show Locals command had a keyboard shortcut…
| QT4 and RB |
On April 18, Apple released the first public beta version of QuickTime 4. It has a bizarre and less functional new interface for the MoviePlayer program, as well as support for a variety of other features. The main two that relate to RB are support for MP3s and Flash (yes, you can now play both in an RB project)
However, if you've got QT4, there as also some other functions you can try. For example, the OpenURLMovie function takes an URL as a parameter, and returns a movie object–even a streaming movie.
Also, pictures now have an ImageCount property and an IndexedImage() property which will return frames of a GIF, pages of a multi-page TIFF, or even layers in a PhotoShop image. It doesn't always work, but it's definitely worth looking into.
| Sound Recording Arrives |
For a long time, RB has had horrible sound support, and this includes a total lack of sound recording capabilities. However, a new plugin has arrived that goes a long way to fixing this problem.
SoundLib 1.0, which can be obtained at http://home5.swipnet.se/~w-53123/hanland.html is written by Jonaton Uppström and, among other things, it can record sounds. That's certainly not all that this can do though. Other features include the ability to set/get the current system volume, and use PlainTalk to say a string.
| SuperSocketPro preview |
As a precursor to his much hyped plugin, SuperSocketPro, James Milne (www.essencesw.com) has released a portion of it for free. The AppleTalkBrowser plugin provides a new class that is part of SuperSocketPro's AppleTalk Suite. It provides tools for gathering information about local networks, such as lists of zones, names of nodes in the zones, etc. SuperSocket Pro itself has also gone beta, so be sure to check the Essence Software web site if you're intersted in this exciting tool.
| Olin's Production Warehouses go berzerk! |
Søren Olin's PictureShader class has recently come out, and it's spectacular. It takes in a picture, and returns a version of it shaded into any color. Yes, anyone could do this with a for loop and a graphics object, but PictureShader is fast. In addition to that, it supports shading by using a mask, and color mask. Another similar, but open source product is PictureDisabler, which simply draws a 50% transparent version of the picture.
And continuing his mad frenzy of releases, Søren has also released a class that will draw customized dashed lines based on a string. For example, "1010" would draw a dotted line. "11110000" would draw a dashed line, and so on.
And if that weren't enough, he also has released a tool that allows more shapes to be drawn to a graphics object, such as an arc or an arrow.
All of Søren's work can be found at his web site.
| Painting in a Canvas |
Dan Vanderkam, the author of httpSocket, has released a new class called CanvasPaint. This class allows a programmer to add painting capabilities to any of their programs by simply adding a canvas. In addition to the basic scribbling abilities, CanvasPaint allows lines, ovals, spray cans, and even selections. It also supports things like scrolling and zooming. To get your copy, head on over to Dan's RB Site.
| RB News Servers |
There are now several RB Newsgroup servers:
news://news.cyberdream.net/realbasic.annonuce
news://news.cyberdream.net/realbasic.new-users
news://news.cyberdream.net/realbasic.dr-users
news://news.cyberdream.net/realbasic.bugs-features
These aren't official newsgroups, but in the future, they may become quite helpful for spreading RB info.
| Version Jumps |
| Version | Date | Summary |
| 2.0.2a1 | 4/30 | Bug Fixes |
| 2.0.1 | 4/27 | Bug Fixes |
| 2.0.1b3 | 4/26 | Bug Fixes |
| 2.0.1b2 | 4/23 | Bug Fixes |
| 2.0.1b1 | 4/21 | Bug Fixes Printing implemented for Windows |
| 2.0.1a5 | 4/20 | API Access for 68k New QT4 functions/properties Bug Fixes |
| 2.0.1a4 | 4/19 | API ACCESS!! RGBSurface for Win32 |
| 2.0.1a3 | 4/16 | Bug Fixes Single method for MemoryBlocks |
| 2.0.1a2 | 4/15 | Bug Fixes Gestalt methods |
| 2.0.1a1 | 4/14 | Various Bug fixes First ever pre-release version of RB without "DR" in it. |
| 2.0 | 4/13 | Bug Fixes Was originally DR2r82 |
| r81 | 4/12 | Bug Fixes Demo limitations increased |
| r80 | 4/11 | Bug fixes Reference uses typeahead |
| r79 | 4/10 | Bug Fixes Text Encoding improvements |
| r78 | 4/9 | Bug Fixes Better Internationalization |
| r77 | 4/8 | Bug fixes Trim functions optimized |
| r76 | 4/7 | Bug Fixes HeadingIndex for listboxes |
| r75 | 4/2 | Bug Fixes Improved AE support |
| r74 | 4/2 | New Source Code printing options Bug Fixes galore Locals/Stack windows now optional! |
| r73 | 4/2 | Bug Fixes Properties multiline editor improved |