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Review
Stimulus 2.0
Issue: 1.1 (August/September 2002)
Author: Greg Fiumara
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,639
Starting Page Number: 9
RBD Number: 1022
Resource File(s): None
Related Link(s): None
Known Limitations: None
Full text of article...
If you think the tools that the REALbasic environment gives you to work with digital media are too few, think again. Stimulus 2.0, Electric Butterfly's image viewer and audio/video player, is out.
Stimulus is an all-in-one digital media viewer. If you are tired of switching through tons of applications to view your media files (Photoshop for your pictures, iTunes for your MP3's and iPod, QuickTime Player for your videos), Stimulus is for you. This version of Stimulus has many new features, including the ability to play back from your iPod. (Didn't know you could do that with REALbasic did you?) Stimulus supports over fifteen file formats, from Audio CD to WAVE, and still more formats are planned for inclusion in the 3.0 release of the software.
Stimulus has a built-in help system, which is more or less a simple emulation of the Language Reference built into REALbasic. The help demonstrates a good way to use HTML rendering in your application. (A development tool by the same company, called UniHelp, powers the rendering.) This application also takes advantage of the famous CD Control by Toby Rush, which powers its Audio CD playback.
If it were not for custom classes and the sub-classing made available in the REALbasic IDE, REALbasic would probably not have survived. Sub-classing is one of the more powerful features in REALbasic, and, clearly, Stimulus 2.0 shows that. From its amazing color bevel buttons that also have 32x32 icons to the WindowSplitter control, Stimulus 2.0 would not have been released or have been successful without the help of sub-classing and third party class developers.
Electric Butterfly has found an interesting and very clever use for a timer control in Stimulus 2.0. This new version of Stimulus has a slide show feature. This feature activates a timer that, every few seconds, scans through the built-in file browser for media files that it can open. It then displays the files that it finds one at a time for a slide-show effect.
This new release of Stimulus has amazing new error handling techniques, thanks to REALbasic version 4. The new release of REALbasic includes a new event called "Unhandled Exception." This allows programmers to not have to add "exception" lines to each object in their program to prevent from crashes. Instead, the programmer can add in just a few lines of code to the Unhandled Exception event and if there is a crash, it triggers the code in that event. Because of this, Stimulus can also have very light memory requirements to compliment its small file size.
If the user happens to like this shareware program, as long as they have their credit card handy, they can order it without getting out of their chair. Stimulus makes perfect use of the eSellerate plugin for REALbasic for convenient online ordering.
Stimulus 2.0 shows off the power of REALbasic in many impressive areas.
In Brief Product Stimulus 2.0 Manufacturer Electric Butterfly Price $12 System Requirements Mac OS 8.6+, Mac OS X 10.1+, Quicktime 4+ (Classic), Quicktime 5+ (OS X), 6 MB RAM Contact Info support-at-ebutterfly.com
www.ebutterfly.com/stimulus
End of article.
Article copyrighted by REALbasic Developer magazine. All rights reserved.
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