REALbasic is a programming language in the best Macintosh tradition: visual, intuitive, and easy to learn. It allows you to create interfaces in minutes and entire, compiled applications without having to learn a complicated language; the strong object orientation makes it very easy even for beginners to develop, maintain, and alter projects. Best of all, an REALbasic 3, a single button click generates your project as a Mac OS 8/9 application, a Mac OS X native ("Carbon") application, or a Windows executable. No other application framework lets you compile for users on so many platforms so quickly and easily.

REALbasic: The Definitive Guide not only gives you a firm grasp of the program's essential concepts, but also tells you things you won't learn from the official documentation alone. If you've never programmed before, the book offers both a primer in REALbasic and an intuitive approach to the concepts of programming itself, as you quickly reach the ability to program every aspect of REALbasic. You start out drawing the interface much as you would do in a drawing program: by selecting buttons, menus, dialog boxes, and the like from a tools menu. Then you use the code editor to fill in the code that tells these pieces what to do.

The widely hailed first edition of REALbasic: The Definitive Guide has been completely rewritten to encompass reader suggestions and the many improvements of REALbasic 3—like its ability to compile and run under OS X.

The book is divided into three sections:

• Fundamentals: a detailed summary of the language that quickly shows you how to think about programming and accomplish your goals in less time
• User Interface: how to create a complete application using the rich classes and pre-defined tools that make life so much easier for the REALbasic programmer.
• Reaching Out: Internet communications, databases, multimedia, game programming and more!

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: Fundamentals

1: The Workspace

The Project Window

Editing Windows

Adding Functionality

How the Three Editors Relate

Testing Without Building

Online Help

Shortcuts

2: The Basic Language

Lines and Commands

Variables and Constants

Subroutines

Regulating Flow

Arrays

Recursion

Comments

3: Objects, Classes, and Instances

Messages and Dot Notation

Object Design Philosophy

Classes and Instances

Anatomy of a Class

An Instance Is Born

Referring to Instances

The Truth About Controls

Control Clones and Control Arrays

Being Careful with Instance References

Destruction of Instances

4: Class Relationships and Class Features

New Classes and Inheritance

Casting

Overriding

Class Interfaces

Events and New Events

The Class Hierarchy

Global Members

Advanced Class Features

Example Classes

5: Datatypes

Booleans

Strings

Numbers

Variants

Collections

Dates

Colors

Memoryblocks

Threads

6: Menus

Menu Overview

Editing Menus

Special Menu Items

The Menu-Enabling Moment

Menu Item Functionality

Dynamic Menus

Menu Examples

7: The Architecture of an Application

Three Pillars of Zen

The Application Subclass

Order of Events

8: Debugging and Building

Compile Errors

Exceptions

The Debugger

Building

Part II: User Interface

9: Windows

Window Types

Opening and Closing, Showing and Hiding

Title, Position, and Size

Events

Drawing in a Window

10: Abstract Control Classes

Lifetime Events

Appearance

Position and Size

Mouse Movement Events

Redrawing

11: Canvases

Canvas Events, Properties, and Methods

Picture Class

Graphics Class

Backdrop Property

Fun With Graphics Properties

Canvas Graphics Property

Transparency and Icons

Speed

Interaction with Other Objects

12: Buttons and StaticTexts

PushButton

BevelButton

Placard

LittleArrows

CheckBox

RadioButton and GroupBox

DisclosureTriangle

StaticText

Custom Buttons

13: EditFields

Types of EditField

EditField Events, Properties, and Methods

The Focus

Manipulating Text and Styles

Reacting to User Input

Drawing Styled Text

Miscellaneous Tips

14: ListBoxes

ListBox Features

ListBox Events, Properties, and Methods

Basic ListBox Techniques

Hierarchical ListBoxes

Other ListBox Features

15: ProgressBars, Sliders, and Scrollbars

ProgressBar

Slider

Scrollbar

16: Shapes and Decorations

Line

Shapes

Separator

ImageWell

ChasingArrows

PopupArrow

17: Menus in Windows

PopupMenu

BevelButton

ContextualMenu

Alternatives

18: TabPanels

Preparation

Properties and Events

Usage

19: Keyboard

Keyboard Communication

Keyboard Object

UserCancelled

20: Mouse and Cursor

Mouse Communication

Polling the Mouse

Balloon Help

Cursor

Part III: Reaching Out

21: Files

Getting a FolderItem

File Types

File Properties and File Actions

Arbitrary Data: Binary Streams

Sequential Data: Text Streams

Resources

Predefined Data Formats

22: Databases

Database Files and Classes

Schemas

Displaying Data

Other Data Sources

23: Clipboard

Clipboard Class

Usage

24: Drag-and-Drop

Beginning a Drag

Receiving a Drop

Finder Drop

Internal Drag-and-Drop

Limitations and Workarounds

25: Time

Ticks and Microseconds

Timers

Yielding Time

26: Sound

Beep

Sound Object

MIDI Notes

27: Movies

Movie Class

MoviePlayer

Movie Usage

Making Movies

Analyzing Movies

28: Animation

Configuring the SpriteSurface

Basic Sprite Techniques

Basic Background Techniques

Improving the Classes

Intelligent Sprite Behavior

Responding to Keys

Intelligent Collisions

29: Printing

Page Setup

Proceeding To Print

Measurement Problems

Printing Text

30: TCP/IP Communications

Socket Properties, Methods, and Events

Client

Server

31: Interapplication Communications

Sending Apple Events

Receiving Apple Events

Apple Event Classes, Properties, and Methods

Apple Event Inadequacies

AppleScripts

Shell

32: Language Extensions

Direct Toolbox Calls

XCMDs

Shared Libraries

Plug-ins

Growing an Application

Index