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Review
Carbon Events Plug-in 2.5
Issue: 1.1 (August/September 2002)
Author: Daniel Howard
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,843
Starting Page Number: 8
RBD Number: 1024
Resource File(s): None
Related Link(s): None
Known Limitations: None
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You use REALbasic because it is the easiest Rapid Application Development tool for the Macintosh. However, it is limited when it comes to OS X (Carbon) events, features, and controls. That is where the Carbon Events Plug-In comes in. It takes over where REALbasic leaves you stranded.
The Carbon Events Plug-In adds several key features for Carbon builds such as: Scroll Wheel support, Quit events, Sheets support, useable screen space, Proxy Icons, and a lot more! Let's take a look.
The Quit event is essential for OS X builds. It enables you to use the Quit menu item that is found under the Application menu. REALbasic quits when this menu is selected, but you can't add any code to the event. (i.e. Say you have a word processor and the user quits. You would usually want to make sure that any open files have been saved and give the user the option of saving or not. With REALbasic 4.0.2 and lower, this was not an option. The application would quit without warning when selected from the Application menu.)
A Sheet is an OS X dialog box that is attached to a window. They can be translucent or opaque and make it easier for the user to distinguish what window the dialog box is related too. Although it is possible to create a sheet in REALbasic, you cannot use sheets to display Save/Open dialogs. Thanks to the Carbon Events Plug-in you can!
To some, the following may sound like trivial features; however, they are very useful. The first is the inclusion of Proxy Icons. Proxy Icons are displayed in the title bar of a window and have become widely used in OS X. Their inclusion in this plugin allows programmers to make their applications follow OS X appearance conventions. The plugin also allows users to keep track of the usable space on their screen. Under Mac OS X, the user's desktop will usually have a Dock on it, in any of a number of positions. Users will expect that your application recognize the position of their Dock. While nearly impossible in REALbasic, Carbon Events Plug-in makes that as easy as adding two lines of code!
Although this plug-in has a lot of great features, it still has some minor drawbacks. For instance, it does support Live Window Resizing, but if you do this, no controls can be locked to any of the windows sides (which limits the usefulness of Live Window Resizing). Also, Translucent sheets will not work if anything else in the window is redrawn. These problems are REALbasic-related and are not controllable by the creator of this plugin.
Besides these few minor drawbacks, the Carbon Events Plug-in is a must have for all OS X developers. Hopefully REALbasic will add these features in future releases, but until then this plugin will do the trick.
In Brief Product Carbon Events Plug-in 2.5 Manufacturer Everyday Software Price $15 System Requirements Mac OS X 10.1+, REALbasic 3.x Contact Info everyday-at-mac.com
homepage.mac.com/everyday
Pros Inexpensive, Easy to use, Gives essential OS X controls Cons Live Window Resizing is limited, scrollwheel support doesn't work all the time Rating (1.0 - 5.0): 4.5
End of article.
Article copyrighted by REALbasic Developer magazine. All rights reserved.
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