REALsoftware
produces REALbasic. There are two Macintosh versions, Classic and
OS X. This review examines Classic version 4.5.1.
Additionally, there are two editions of REALbasic, the Standard
($149.95) and the Professional ($349.95). The system requirements are a
PowerPC, Mac OS 8.1 or later, 6.5 MB of hard drive space, and 4.5 MB
RAM.
The test system is a Power
Mac 8100 with a 367 MHz G3 processor card, 136 MB RAM, several 4-8
GB hard drives, and Mac OS 8.1 and 8.6, using Conflict Catcher 8. A
30-day demo is available for download from REALsoftware.
The REALbasic Demo
The REALbasic 4.5.1 Classic demo contains the complete program.
REALbasic allows programmers to build both Macintosh Classic and
OS X programs, as well as PC programs. Programs compiled by the
demo will operate for 5 minutes and only during the trial period. In
order to continue using REALbasic beyond 30 days, it is necessary to
purchase, at a minimum, a license ($99.95).
The Standard and Professional editions each contain the license, an
application CD, and printed documentation. Included in the application
CD are examples, tutorials, and electronic documentation. The demo is
obtained from the demo website <http://www.realsoftware.com/download/demo.html>.
The demo file is 8.2 MB. Using a 56K modem, the demo downloads in
around 30 minutes. Faster connections will, of course, allow for faster
downloading. The REALbasic folder loads itself onto the desktop. Simply
transfer it to your hard drive's applications folder and the
installation is complete.
The demo folder contains the REALbasic 4.5.1 Classic program and six
folders: IDE Extras, Internet Resources, Plugins, Read Me's,
Soundtracks, and Stationary.
- The IDE Extras folder has sample coding scripts and allows other
applications to be added to the REALbasic menus.
- Weblinks useful to most REALbasic programmers, as well as links to
other REALbasic developer sites, are included in the Internet Resources
folder.
- Plugins add new functions to programs and REALbasic allows for this
with the Plugins folder - simply install the plugin into the folder and
it is installed as REALbasic starts up.
- Important development files and release notes are available in the
Read Me's folder.
- Finally, the Soundtracks folder contains sound effects for use in
REALbasic and the Stationary folder allows programmers to set default
settings for projects.
Most demo users, however, will not be using any of these folder
features at the start.
The program started with no difficulties. Conflicts have been
nonexistent since installing the program on the test system, in both
Mac OS 8.1 or 8.6. During testing, Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 was run
along with REALbasic to view the many PDF tutorials. On several
occasions, Word 98, Netscape 4.74, and Toast 4.1.1 have also run
without any problems.
REALbasic has a toolbar-based interface, like Photoshop and
PageMaker. At start up, several windows appear: the Control Palette,
the Project Window and its untitled Window Editor, and the Properties
Window. Providing various Button controls, ListBox controls, and
EditField controls, the Control Palette contains over 30 interface
objects.
Drag and drop the required interface object to the Window Editor
window to place it into the program. The Project Window lists the items
in the program, such as menus, the untitled Window Editor, and any
other windows that may be added.
Each object, including interface objects, has a Properties Window.
This window contains a list of properties and values for the currently
selected object. When another object is selected, the Properties Window
changes to show that objects properties.
Build a First Program
To build a first, simple program, such as "Hello World", start with
the startup windows: Control Icons window, Project window and its
untitled Window Editor, and the Properties window. File > Save As
the Project window to HelloWorld.rb. Change the untitled Window Editor
name to "Hello World Program" on the Title field in the Properties
window.
Drag and drop the PushButton Tool and the EditField Tool to the
program window. Edit > Duplicate (Command-D) the PushButton Tool
twice, and renamed the buttons "DisplayHello," "Clear," and "Quit" in
their respective Properties Name field. Rename the EditField Tool
"TextDisplay" in the Properties Name field. Place the "TextDisplay"
EditField at the top of the window with the "Display Hello" and "Clear"
buttons on the same line under it and the "Quit" button at the
bottom.
Add the code to the PushButtons and the EditField. From the program
window, Option-Tab to get the Code Editor window. From there, click the
disclosure triangle to the left of the Controls icon and for each
button add code. In the "Display Hello" button, place
TextDisplay.Text="Hello World"
in the Action item. The "Clear" button has
TextDisplay.Text=""
and the "Exit" button has
Beep
Quit
added to the Action item. Choose Debug > Run (Command-R) to test
the program.
Build the stand-alone applications by going to File > Build
Settings. Choose whether to build a Macintosh program or a PC program
or both. Name the program "Hello" for Macintosh and/or "Hello.exe" for
PC (using the popup menu). Click OK and File > Build Application.
REALbasic then builds the application(s). In all, the program should
take about 15-20 minutes to build.
Additional Tutorials
REALsoftware also has several REALbasic Tutorial
PDFs on their tutorial website. The main tutorial is 4.5 MB and
involves building a simple Text Editor program, similar to SimpleText.
In 12 separate chapters it covers such topics as Working with Documents
(Ch. 4), Adding Drag and Drop to TextEditor (Ch. 6), and Printing
Styled Text (Ch. 9). Each chapter is short and specific, explaining the
steps necessary to build a workable program.
The Text Editor program is easy to build and will take several
sessions with REALbasic. In order to get more experience in specific
parts of program building, a new REALbasic programmer should refer back
to the Text Editor program because it contains elements required in
more advanced programs.
Other tutorial programs available include building a URL manager.
There are also many websites that contain step-by-step REALbasic
programming tutorials. REALbasic University is an
excellent resource for the novice programmer, with 73 lessons at last
count.
Conclusion
This is a very impressive program. The user-interface is excellent
and the features are helpful. The possibility to build new programs for
both Macintosh and PC is of great benefit. The demo was used on the
test system for the full trial period, with at least one hour per day
using the program. Many of the tutorials were used during that time to
explore the program.
While the learning curve can be steep for some new programming
languages, the author found that this was not the case. In fact,
learning REALbasic was much easier on one's own than his experience
learning C in the classroom.
The author believes that the novice would have little problem
picking up the fundamentals of REALbasic, especially if the many
Internet resources are used. While not yet achieving several hundred
line programs, beginners can gain confidence as they build more
applications, adding new and complex code and features to them.
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