REALbasic QuickStart Welcome to REALbasic! REALbasic is an application builder based on a modern version of the BASIC programming language. The REALbasic development environment is made up of a rich set of graphical user interface objects (commonly referred to as a GUI), an object-oriented language, a debugger, and a compiler. With the graphical user interface, you can build your application’s interface simply by dragging and dropping interface objects into the application’s windows and dialogs. Together with REALbasic’s object-oriented language, debugger, and cross-platform compiler, it makes up REALbasic’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE), designed to make application prototyping and programming easy. REALbasic provides you with all the tools you need to build virtually any application you can imagine. If you are new to programming, you will find that REALbasic makes it fun and easy to create full-featured applications. If you are an intermediate or advanced program- mer, you will appreciate REALbasic’s rich set of built-in tools. This QuickStart is for people who are new to programming and new to REALbasic. It will give you a gentle introduction to the REALbasic development environment, lead you through the development of a real application, and show you what kinds of other applications can be built with REALbasic. It should take you no longer than 30 minutes to complete this QuickStart. REALbasic QuickStart 1 Note If you have experience with other versions of the BASIC language or have experience with other programming languages, you’ll want to check out the Tutorial and User’s Guide. In the Tutorial, you’ll develop a more complete application, which includes menus, dialog boxes, and objects called classes. Presentation Conventions The QuickStart uses screen snapshots taken from the Windows, Macintosh, and Linux versions of REALbasic. The interface design and feature set are identical on all platforms, so the differences between platforms are cosmetic and have to do with the differences between Windows XP’s standard appearance setting, the Macintosh’s Mac OS X interface, and Linux’s ‘Bluecurve’ desktop that ships with Red Hat Linux. Italic type is used to emphasize the first time a new term is used, and to highlight important concepts. In addition, titles of books, such as REALbasic User’s Guide, are italicized. When you are instructed to choose an item from one of REALbasic’s menus, you will see something like “choose File . New Project”. This is equivalent to “choose New Project from the File menu.” The items within the parentheses are keyboard shortcuts and consist of a sequence of …

REALbasic QuickStart Welcome to REALbasic! REALbasic is an application builder based on a modern version of the BASIC programming language. The REALbasic development environment is made up of a rich set of graphical user interface objects (commonly referred to as a GUI), an object-oriented language, a debugger, and a compiler. With the graphical user interface, you can build your application’s interface simply by dragging and dropping interface objects into the application’s windows and dialogs. Together with REALbasic’s object-oriented language, debugger, and cross-platform compiler, it makes up REALbasic’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE), designed to make application prototyping and programming easy. REALbasic provides you with all the tools you need to build virtually any application you can imagine. If you are new to programming, you will find that REALbasic makes it fun and easy to create full-featured applications. If you are an intermediate or advanced program- mer, you will appreciate REALbasic’s rich set of built-in tools. This QuickStart is for people who are new to programming and new to REALbasic. It will give you a gentle introduction to the REALbasic development environment, lead you through the development of a real application, and show you what kinds of other applications can be built with REALbasic. It should take you no longer than 30 minutes to complete this QuickStart. REALbasic QuickStart 1 Note If you have experience with other versions of the BASIC language or have experience with other programming languages, you’ll want to check out the Tutorial and User’s Guide. In the Tutorial, you’ll develop a more complete application, which includes menus, dialog boxes, and objects called classes. Presentation Conventions The QuickStart uses screen snapshots taken from the Windows, Macintosh, and Linux versions of REALbasic. The interface design and feature set are identical on all platforms, so the differences between platforms are cosmetic and have to do with the differences between Windows XP’s standard appearance setting, the Macintosh’s Mac OS X interface, and Linux’s ‘Bluecurve’ desktop that ships with Red Hat Linux. Italic type is used to emphasize the first time a new term is used, and to highlight important concepts. In addition, titles of books, such as REALbasic User’s Guide, are italicized. When you are instructed to choose an item from one of REALbasic’s menus, you will see something like “choose File . New Project”. This is equivalent to “choose New Project from the File menu.” The items within the parentheses are keyboard shortcuts and consist of a sequence of …

WWWREALBASICCOM 4UTORIAL REALbasic 2006 Tutorial Documentation by David Brandt. Concept by Geoff Perlman. © 1999-2005 by REAL Software, Inc. All rights reserved. WASTE Text Engine © 1993-2005 Marco Piovanelli Printed in U.S.A. Mailing REAL Software, Inc. Address 1705 South Capital of Texas Highway Suite 310 Austin, TX 78746 Web Site http://www.realsoftware.com ftp Site ftp://ftp.realsoftware.com Support Submit via REALbasic Feedback at www.realsoftware.com Bugs/Feature Submit via REALbasic Feedback at www.realsoftware.com. Requests Sales sales@realsoftware.com Phone 512-328-REAL (7325) Fax 512-328-7372 Version 2006r3, June, 2006. Contents CHAPTER 1 Introducing REALbasic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 How to Use this Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Who Should Use this Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Presentation Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Lesson Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 On Your Mark, Get Set, Go! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 CHAPTER 2 Creating Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Starting Up REALbasic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Project Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Building a Document Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Adding an EditField . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Configuring TextField as a Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 CHAPTER 3 Creating Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Working with Text Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Creating the New Menu Item. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Handling the New Menu Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 CHAPTER 4 Opening and Saving Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Saving Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Adding the Save Menu Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 REALbasic User’s Guide 1 Contents Adding Properties t…

WWWREALBASICCOM 4UTORIAL REALbasic 2006 Tutorial Documentation by David Brandt. Concept by Geoff Perlman. © 1999-2005 by REAL Software, Inc. All rights reserved. WASTE Text Engine © 1993-2005 Marco Piovanelli Printed in U.S.A. Mailing REAL Software, Inc. Address 1705 South Capital of Texas Highway Suite 310 Austin, TX 78746 Web Site http://www.realsoftware.com ftp Site ftp://ftp.realsoftware.com Support Submit via REALbasic Feedback at www.realsoftware.com Bugs/Feature Submit via REALbasic Feedback at www.realsoftware.com. Requests Sales sales@realsoftware.com Phone 512-328-REAL (7325) Fax 512-328-7372 Version 2006r3, June, 2006. Contents CHAPTER 1 Introducing REALbasic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 How to Use this Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Who Should Use this Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Presentation Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Lesson Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 On Your Mark, Get Set, Go! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 CHAPTER 2 Creating Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Starting Up REALbasic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Project Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Building a Document Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Adding an EditField . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Configuring TextField as a Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 CHAPTER 3 Creating Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Working with Text Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Creating the New Menu Item. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Handling the New Menu Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 CHAPTER 4 Opening and Saving Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Saving Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Adding the Save Menu Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 REALbasic User’s Guide 1 Contents Adding Properties t…

WWWREALBASICCOM 5SERS 'UIDE REALbasic 2006r3 User’s Guide Documentation by David Brandt. © 1999-2006 by REAL Software, Inc. All rights reserved. WASTE Text Engine © 1993-2006 Marco Piovanelli Printed in U.S.A. Mailing Address REAL Software, Inc. 1705 South Capital of Texas Highway Suite 310 Austin, TX 78746 Web Site http://www.realsoftware.com ftp Site ftp://ftp.realsoftware.com Support REALbasic Feedback at the REAL Software web site. Bugs/ Submit via REALbasic Feedback at the REAL Software Feature Requests web site. Database Plug- The REALbasic CD; the most recent versions are at ins www.realsoftware.com. Sales sales@realsoftware.com Phone 512-328-REAL (7325) Fax 512-328-7372 Version 2006r3, July, 2006 Contents CHAPTER 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Welcome to REALbasic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Installing REALbasic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Windows Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Linux Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Macintosh Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Where to Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Documentation Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Using the On-Line Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Searching the Online Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Context-Sensitive Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Context-Sensitive Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Using Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Electronic Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Our Support Web Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 End User Web Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 REALbasic Developer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 REALbasic third-party Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The REALbasic CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Our Internet Mailing Lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Technical Support from REAL Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Contacting REAL Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 …