REALBasic: TDG: The Definitive Guide (Definitive Guides) Book

Matt Neuberg's REALbasic: The Definitive Guide provides a patient and thorough introductory text for REALbasic 2.0 on the Macintosh, an object-oriented programming environment based on components and BASIC. Even if you've never programmed before, this title--combined with the power and ease of REALbasic--is all you need to start writing your own software for the Mac.Besides a tutorial to the REALbasic tool itself, the author's introduction to object-oriented software is remarkable for its patience while getting the beginner to think in objects. (Besides an authority on Macintosh programming, Neuberg has a PhD in Ancient Greek. This book is perhaps unique in discussing objects while quoting Plato.) There is a full tour of REALbasic program statements, data types and the nuts-and-bolts of working with the environment and building basic programs.The heart of this text covers the various controls and features available in REALbasic. The author covers simple and advanced user controls (like buttons, edit controls, menus and listboxes). Neuberg's tour here will let any reader design user interfaces and add event handlers to provide program functionality. Highlights include how to display images and do animation, sound and video within REALbasic. (Here, the author extends the already strong multimedia support in REALbasic with his own code for a simple video game.) For more-experienced users, there are how-to's on using files, databases and socket programming with TCP/IP and AppleScript.In all, REALbasic: The Definitive Guide serves its purpose well as a one-volume reference and tutorial to getting the most out of this capable tool, whose functionality certainly rivals any of today's RAD-style programming environments. --Richard Dragan, Amazon.comTopics covered: Overview of the REALbasic environment, BASIC language keywords, constructs and datatypes, arrays, objects, classes and instances, subclasses, events, menus, application architecture, building and debugging, window basics, system events, mouse processing, canvases and graphics, displaying images, basic controls, listboxes, progress bars, sliders, shapes, menus, tab panels, keyboard and mouse processing, files, databases, clipboard, drag-and-drop functionality, sound and MIDI, playing movies, game animations, printing, socket programming, Apple Events and AppleScript, and language extensions with XCMDs and plug-ins.Read More