Introduction

IN A WORLD OF OPEN SOURCE OR FREELY available programming languages and integrated development environments, you might be wondering why you would want to purchase REALbasic, a proprietary language that is closed-source and definitely not free. I think there is a very good reason to do sobecause REALbasic offers some unique characteristics that cannot be found anywhere else. First of all, it's remarkably easy to use. It also compiles into native machine code for three operating systems: Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

REALbasic is a dynamic language. REAL Software, the company that produces REALbasic, releases a new version every six months. This means that new features are being added (and old bugs are being fixed) all the time. There is so much you can do with REALbasic that it is impossible to cover it in one book, so I have tried to focus on the primary features of the language that most programmers will use. Rest assured, however, that by the time you read this, there will be more features available and still plenty more to learn about.

REALbasic also has a very active and friendly user community. If you have not done so already, it's a good idea to sign up for one of the mailing lists where users post questions and get answers from other users as well as REALbasic engineers themselves. Throughout the years, I have been an avid reader of the messages from these lists, and this book owes a debt of gratitude to everyone who has participated.

In the coming pages, you will read about what you will find in the rest of the book. Wherever possible I have used real-world examples that you can use in your own development. I have tried to present the information in such a way that it is useful to both first-time and experienced programmers.

Chapter 1, Introduction to REALbasic

Find out what's new in the latest version of REALbasic and decide if it's the right programming language for your needs.

Chapter 2, Programming with REALbasic

Learn the basics of programming in REALbasic. This chapter covers datatypes and modules, and it walks you through your first REALbasic applicationa rudimentary web browser.

Chapter 3, Classes and Objects

REALbasic is an object-oriented programming language, and this chapter delves into object-oriented programming concepts and how they are implemented in REALbasic.

Chapter 4, Cross-Platform Application Development

REALbasic gives you the capability to create applications for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux operating systems. This chapter provides you with some basic information about the differences among the platforms that will help you to write quality applications on all of them.

Chapter 5, Designing a Desktop Application

Desktop applications are applications that make use of a graphical user interface. The REALbasic IDE lets you use the drag-and-drop feature to design your user interface, and this chapter shows you how.

Chapter 6, XML and Advanced Text Processing

XML, regular expressions, and styled text are discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 7, Console Programming and the Shell

You can also create programs in REALbasic that run on the command line, without a graphical user interface. You can interact with the Shell programmatically through REALbasic's Shell class, and you can also write your own console applications that can be run from within the shell on each platform.

Chapter 8, Databases

You can design a graphical front-end to your database without writing a single line of code. This chapter shows you how.

Chapter 9, Networking and Internet Programming

Read about REALbasic's networking classes and learn how to write your very own web server.

Chapter 10, Graphics

This chapter delves into REALbasic's Graphics class and shows you how to manipulate graphics and draw to the screen.

Chapter 11, Scripting and Extending REALbasic

Learn how to script Microsoft Office applications as well as how to make your REALbasic application scriptable. You'll also be given an overview on how you can extend REALbasic by using shared libraries and writing plug-ins in C++.

Appendix

Read about where you can go online to find additional information and how to get copies of the sample code referenced in the book.