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Review
Developer: Seth Willits
Issue: 2.1 (August/September 2003)
Author: Brian Jones
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,467
Starting Page Number: 9
RBD Number: 2105
Resource File(s): None
Related Link(s): None
Known Limitations: None
Full text of article...
There are a lot of REALbasic developers out there who make their expertise and experience available to the REALbasic community through the distribution of examples and tutorials online. Freak Software's Seth Willits is just one of those developers. He has made available an extensive selection of examples, classes, plug-ins, and articles, all for free. Some of the items available serve small niche purposes, while others are essentials for a wide variety of REALbasic programmers. Below follows a summary of some of the more interesting tidbits made available by this prolific young programmer.
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No description available.
Willits has developed a series of tutorials on features new to REALbasic 5, including the new interface elements and the improved, expanded sockets. Willits has labeled this section "Examples," rather than "Tutorials," and the included files' true nature is somewhere in between. These files tend to show complete solutions to problems, rather than just a few key lines in isolation; however, the code is not extensively commented, limiting the size of the audience that can learn from the examples. True beginners need not apply, but anyone with at least a general understanding of REALbasic code should be able to learn from the examples. The socket example suite is the real star of this section, illustrating complete approaches to a feature of REALbasic that can be intimidating to some.
There is also a rather large collection of plug-ins available. The plug-ins implement several new Mac OS X interface elements such as the relevance bar and the round button, help users interface with the notification manager, retrieve various pieces of system information that REALbasic doesn't give access to, and perform other miscellaneous tasks. All of the plug-ins have been designed to have interfaces consistent with other REALbasic controls and methods and are easily included in a project.
Seth Willits has also developed a large list of classes and modules. Some of the highlights are controls and other interface related items such as the calculation of the system's dark highlight color, rounded editfields, and a nice calendar window. All of the modules seem to be open source, so they can be included and easily altered by the user; however, like the examples, comments are few and far between, so novices may have to work a bit harder to make use of them.
An anomaly on the site also happens to be one of the most useful items available. Willits has written a guide to using databases in REALbasicc that quickly explains database theory and goes on to connect that theory to the specific implementation in REALbasic. It is a much-needed supplement to REALbasic's documentation that is particularly lacking in this area.
The above is a very limited selection of highlights from an extremely extensive group. Everything is free in exchange for credit in any distribution that makes use of the code. Seth Willits has given a great gift to the REALbasic community, and all developers would do well to stop by his site; there are sure to be several items of interest.
In Brief Developer Seth Willits Contact Info freaksw.com/development/realbasic
End of article.
Article copyrighted by REALbasic Developer magazine. All rights reserved.
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