Big News

  For the upcoming release of RealBasic 1.0, I've decided to take a look back at some of the biggest and most important changes and events in the year or so that RealBasic/CrossBasic has been in public/private beta. So, with no further ado, let's begin!!!

One of the neater things about RB is that it seems to be updated nearly once a week (It's actually about once every 8.1167 days). Thanks to Geoff, who has given me the release notes for verisons 4-30 something, I've been able to make a list of some of the biggest changes, and coolest new features.   The only new features in the first few versions were things we take for granted now, such as the sin and cos functions, but these new features quickly became incredible new features that made CrossBasic a great language. For example, XCMD and XCFN support were added early on, thus making CrossBasic expandable. Then came what some might say is one of the best features: AppleScript support. This feature allowed programmers in XBasic as it was then	This graph shows the versions of RB/CB. CB is in brown, RB in blue.
	known to add features without knowing C. Other features
Best additions in RB history r5 Added support for sound files. r6 Added ShowModal method r8 Sel properties for Edit Fields r10 AppleScript now supported r11 XCMDs&XCFNs supported. r13 Added Timers r14 Added progress bars. r14 Aliases now resolved automatically r19 Support for submenus added. r21 TCP/IP socket added r21 Controls now get Open and Close r23 Resourcefork object added. r25 Code editor "text guessing" added r26 Transparent property for pictures. r28 Editor changed to current design r28 Styled text controls r29 Hierarchial list boxes r31 Sprite Surface added r33 AddPicture for ResourceFork object r34 Plugins are introduced r35 Folders in the project window allowed r39 GetSound method for ResourceForks	have accumulated now, and to the left, you will find my list of the 22 best additions to CrossBasic and Realbasic. One of the funnier things that I noticed when reading all of the release notes was FYI/REAL software's tendency to understate things. For example, here are the five most modest new features lines there ever were: The five most understated improvements What was said The reality New Code editor and palettes Name changed to "Realbasic" A name change for the program AND company, and a complete interface overhaul. Support for plugins added  An incredible new plugin format was added that allows C programmers to write controls and methods for RB. SpriteSurface added  A great game mechanism that made games in RB possible was created. Anything you tried before was too slow. ResourceFork object added  XB can finally handle resource files, and to top it all off, it has a simple, and intuitive way of doing it. Styled property for editfields  At last, styled text! Before, all text was plain and boring, but now! Ahh, the joys of the Macintosh are brought to RB.   In addition to great new features, there have been some funny changes. Some weren't funny then, but they sure do look that way now! Here are the funniest changes (my this section has a lot of tables!):
The funniest changes 1) In r34a, quite possibly the biggest change ever occured. The caret in the code editor now blinks! 2) In r29, the key to accept auto-complete (gray) text in the code editor was changed to control-tab. It was back to tab in less than a week. 3) In r24, the HTML language reference was updated to 40 pages. The new prined documentation that you can order is a whole 600 pages. I gues you have to start somewhere...   Well, enough with the joking around and tables, the upcoming release of version 1.0 marks Realbasic's entrance into the world of a profitable product. You can place your orders at www.realsoftware.com/purchase.html where you'll find instructions for how to get the commercial release of RealBasic. For the implications of this release on us and the mac, be sure to read the editor's note. The clean fresh feeling of a whole version number won't last long however, DR2 will be coming soon after the upcoming release of 1.0 (which should come after F1 or F2).