Beginning REALbasic - From Novice To Professional (2006)

The following procedure outlines the steps involved in adding ActiveX controls to REALbasic.

1.Open the REALbasic Project Editor screen.

2.Click the Add ActiveX Component button or select Project ActiveX Components. The COM Components dialog appears, displaying a list of installed ActiveX controls and programmable objects, as Figure 3-47 shows.

Figure 3-47. Viewing a list of ActiveX controls installed on a computer running

Windows XP

3.Select any controls you want to add to REALbasic, and then click OK. The controls you select are displayed in the Project Editor.

■Note To work with an ActiveX control, you need some documentation explaining how the control works. The first place to look is http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/.

Control Alignment

Once placed on a window, you can change any control’s size and position by dragging its handles using the mouse. You can also select a control and move it one pixel at a time using the up and down keys. In addition, you can move and resize a control by setting its Top and Left properties, along with the control’s Height and Width properties.

As you have already seen, when you use the mouse to resize or move controls, REALbasic’s Interface Assistant displays temporary vertical and horizontal alignment indicators to help you align them. In addition, REALbasic provides four properties (LockLeft, LockRight, LockTop, and LockBottom) for each control, which you can use to lock the side of each control into place

98 C H A P T E R 3 ■ C R E A T I N G A N A P P L I C A T I O N ’ S U S E R I N T E R F A C E

Table 3-1. Continued

By default, the order in which the focus is transferred between controls depends on the order in which the controls were added to the window. The first control added to the window gets the initial focus and, when Tab is pressed, focus is passed off to the control that was added second, and so on.

You can change the default Tab order using the icons found on the Windows Editor toolbar. The first step is to get REALbasic to display a visual indication of each control’s Tab order by clicking the Show Control Order button on the Windows Editor toolbar. The result is a number displayed in the button’s right-hand corner of each control showing its Tab order. The control with the lowest number gets focus first. You can change a given control’s order by selecting it, and then clicking one of the following Windows Editor toolbar buttons:

•Forward. Moves the selected control ahead one position in the Tab order.

•Front. Moves the selected control to the end of the Tab order.

•Backward. Moves the selected control backward one position in the Tab order.

•Back. Moves the selected control to the beginning of the Tab order.

■Tip You can also change the default Tab order by changing the value of each control’s ControlOrder property.

Building a Desktop Clock

In keeping with this book’s promise to show you how to create a new application in every chapter, the rest of this chapter is dedicated to guiding you through the creation of the RBClock desktop clock application. For this example, REALbasic for Macintosh is used. However, you should be able to cross-compile this application into a Windows or Linux application with minimal tweaking to the user interface.

The RBClock application, shown in Figure 3-49, is designed to provide the user with a small desktop clock that can easily be tucked away in the corner of the screen.

Figure 3-49. A look at the RBClock application running on Mac OS X

Designing the User Interface

The first step in creating the RBClock application is to assemble its user interface. Begin by double-clicking the Window1 item on the Projects screen to open the Windows Editor. Next, click the Window1 window and, using its resizing handles, reduce the size of the window. Figure 3-49 shows the appearance and size of the window in the completed application.

As you can see, the RBClock application has a simple interface. To build it, start by dragging-and-dropping an instance of the EditField control onto Window1. Note, by default, the name assigned to this control is EditField1. This control is used to display the current time.

Next, add a PushButton control to the form and place it just under the EditField control. To help make the RBClock application a little more user-friendly, add a StaticText control just above the EditField. Finally, open the Project Editor, and then select and remove MenuBar1.

This simple desktop application does not need a MenuBar.

■Note Removing the MenuBar control may not seem to have much of an impact on the Macintosh version of this application, because of the manner in which the Macintosh separates the display of the MenuBar from the application itself. However, it does have a much greater visual effect on Windows and Linux.

At this point, the basic design of the user interface for the RBClock application is complete and should resemble the example you see in Figure 3-49.

Even though the design of the appearance of the user interface is complete, you still must complete one more step before you move on. For the clock to operate as expected, your application needs the capability to update the display of the time every second. To provide your application with this capability, you must add an instance of the Timer control.

When you add an instance of the Timer control to the window, you can see a small icon, as Figure 3-50 shows, representing the control. By default, the Timer control is set up to automatically execute every second once the window that contains it is opened. While visible in REALbasic’s IDE, this icon is invisible to the user when your application is running.

Figure 3-50. The Timer control provides the RBClock application with much needed functionality.

Changing Window and Control Properties

The next step in creating the RBClock application is to modify properties associated with Window1 and the controls you placed on it. Table 3-2 provides a list of property changes you need to make.

Table 3-2. Property Modifications for the RBClock Application

By disabling the CloseButton, you force the user to use the PushButton control you added to the window. By enabling the MinimizeButton, you let the user minimize the application and, later, restore it, without having to close, and then reopen the application.

Also, note, the ReadOnly property of the EditField1 control is enabled. This enables the user to view the current time, but it prevents the user from entering any text into this field. Note, too, you may have to resize the EditField1 control a bit once you change the TextSize property to make sure the control is big enough to display everything.

Adding a Little REALbasic Code

Only three lines of code are required to bring the RBClock application to life. The first programming statement, shown in the following, is assigned to the PushButton1 control’s Action event.

Quit

This statement tells REALbasic to close the RBClock application when the user clicks the PushButton control. The other two lines of code, shown in the following, are needed to make the application display the current time in the application’s EditField.

Dim d as New Date

EditField1.Text = d.LongTime

To apply this code, double-click the icon representing Timer1. This opens the Code Editor and displays the control’s Action event, where the code should be entered. For now, key in these two statements exactly as shown.

■Note The first line of code defines an object variable of type Date. The second line of code displays the current time by setting the EditField control’s Text property to a value retrieved using the Data object’s LongTime property.

Testing Your Application

If you have not done so already, save your application. Name your application RBClock. Your application is now ready to run. If an error occurs during compilation, then you probably made a typo when keying in the code statements. Go back and review each statement, and then fix any typos you find.

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about each of the windows supported by REALbasic. You also learned how to change the default window, and to encrypt and decrypt a window and its contents. You received a overview of each of REALbasic’s built-in controls. You then learned how to expand REALbasic’s capabilities by adding plug-in and ActiveX controls. In addition, you learned how to create the REALbasic Clock application.

104 C H A P T E R 4 ■ W O R K I N G W I T H R E A L B A S I C M E N U S

REALbasic provides you with a built-in Menu Editor, which provides all the tools you need to add menus, menu items, and submenus to your application’s menu system. REALbasic implements menus through MenuBar items managed in the Project Editor and configured using REALbasic’s built-in Menu Editor.

The usefulness of a well-designed menu system is especially apparent on Windows and Linux applications, where each menu is displayed directly on application windows, as Figure 4-1 and Figure 4-2 show.

Figure 4-1. All the functionality provided by the Windows Notepad applications is made available through its menu system.

Figure 4-2. Programs, such as the Textfile application, found on SuSe Linux, provide access to key application commands via their menu systems.

On Macintosh, menus are displayed at the top on the screen, as opposed to directly on application windows, as Figure 4-3 shows.

Figure 4-3. Macintosh applications display their menu systems at the top of the desktop display area, instead of directly on top of application windows.

Examining Menu Components

A typical application’s menu system is made up of a number of different parts, including the highlevel menu headings you see displayed on menu bars. In addition, under each menu, you can find different menu elements, including submenus and menu items. REALbasic provides you with all the tools you need to create professional-looking menus. This includes providing you with the capability to define shortcuts and to visually organize menu contents using separator bars. The following list provides a complete overview of the options REALbasic provides for you when developing a menu system for your applications:

•Menus. High-level headers displayed on the menu bar (File, Edit, Help, and so forth).

•Menu Items. Text items located under menus that represent commands users can select.

•Submenus. Collections of menu items grouped together and accessed through a parent menu (for example, a submenu).

•Shortcuts. Keyboard characters, or character sequences, that provide the capability to access menu items directly from the keyboard.

•Accelerator Keys. Keyboard keys that activate a menu or menu item when pressed in conjunction with the Alt key.

•Separator Bars. Horizontal lines you can use to visually group and separate submenus and menu items into logical groups.