REALbasic : The Definitive Guide [Paperback]

Matt Neuburg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1565926579 | ISBN-13: 978-1565926578 | Edition: 1

REALbasic is a very inexpensive program that allows users to design full-fledged applications. Simply put, it is like having Visual Basic on the Mac. It is an application for writing applications that are astonishingly small and fast. REALbasic uses a simple interface and an object- and event-oriented language; this makes development, maintenance, and alteration of projects very easy. There is no other program like this for the Mac. If you want to write a Mac application, you have little choice of application frameworks, and REALbasic is the only one with visual design, object orientation, and an easy language.

With the Macintosh's popularity on the rise and REALbasic, which presently only runs on Mac, with plans to make Windows applications, the interested audience is wider than the platform implies. Presently there are no ordered instructional books for REALbasic.

REALbasic: The Definitive Guide gives people the information they can't get from the documentation alone and provides new users with the details they need to grasp the program's essential concepts. This book takes the reader from zero knowledge of programming to the ability to program every aspect of REALbasic. The book is divided into three main sections:

• Fundamentals: a detailed and comprehensive summary of the language that quickly shows you how to think about programming and accomplish your goals in less time
• User Interface: how to create a complete application using the rich classes and pre-defined tools that make life so much easier for the REALbasic programmer.
• Reaching Out: comprehensive coverage of Internet communications, databases, multimedia, game programming and more!

This book covers REALbasic 1 and REALbasic 2. Version 2 adds an internal database, an interface to SQL servers, and the ability to compile for Windows and Java. REALbasic: The Definitive Guide is poised to become an essential reference for the expanding legion of developers who are discovering the power and flexibility of this program.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Matt Neuberg's REALbasic: The Definitive Guide is a diligent and thorough introductory text for REALbasic 2 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 use of REALbasic--is all you need to start writing your own software for the Mac.

In addition to being a tutorial to the REALbasic tool itself, the author's introduction to object-oriented software is remarkable for its patience while also getting the beginner to think in objects. (Besides an authority on Macintosh programming, Neuberg has a Ph.D. in ancient Greek. This book is probably alone in that it discusses 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 discusses simple and advanced user controls (like buttons, edit controls, menus, and list boxes). 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 create 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-tos 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

Topics 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, list boxes, 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.

About the Author

Matt Neuburg has a PhD in Classics and has taught at many universities and colleges. He has been programming computers since 1968. He has written applications for Mac OS X and iOS, is a former editor of MacTech Magazine, and is a long-standing contributing editor for TidBITS. His previous O'Reilly books are Frontier: The Definitive Guide, REALbasic: The Definitive Guide, and AppleScript: The Definitive Guide. He makes a living writing books, articles, and software documentation, as well as by programming, consulting, and training.

Product Details

• Paperback: 686 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (October 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565926579
• ISBN-13: 978-1565926578
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,812,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matt Neuburg started programming computers in 1968, when he was 14 years old, as a member of a literally underground high school club, which met once a week to do time-sharing on a bank of PDP-10s by way of primitive Teletype machines. He also occasionally used Princeton University's IBM-360/67, but gave it up in frustration when one day he dropped his punch cards. He majored in Greek at Swarthmore College and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1981, writing his doctoral dissertation (about Aeschylus) on a mainframe. He proceeded to teach classical languages, literature, and culture at many well-known institutions of higher learning, most of which now disavow knowledge of his existence, and to publish numerous scholarly articles unlikely to interest anyone. Meanwhile he obtained an Apple IIc and became hopelessly hooked on computers again, migrating to a Macintosh in 1990. He wrote some educational and utility freeware, became an early regular contributor to the online journal TidBITS, and in 1995 left academe to edit MacTech Magazine. In August 1996 he became a freelancer, which means he has been looking for work ever since.

He remains a contributing editor for TidBITS. He is the author of Programming iOS 4, AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, REALbasic: The Definitive Guide, and Frontier: The Definitive Guide, all from O'Reilly Media, Inc., and of several eBooks in the popular Take Control series. He has also written several online guides, such as his introduction to rb-appscript. He has taught in developer training programs such as the AppleScript Pro Sessions. He is the author of the online help for many prominent Mac applications, such as Script Debugger, Affrus, Opal, and MacSpeech Dictate. He has written such widely used Mac freeware as MemoryStick, NotLight, and Thucydides. He has created (and uses) his own open source Ruby-based Web site development framework, RubyFrontier. In 2007 he was voted by MacTech readers as one of the 25 most influential people in the Macintosh community. He has written several iPhone applications under his own name (search the iPhone app store under "Neuburg"), as well as the widely used TidBITS News, plus some additional applications created under contract that he isn't allowed to talk about.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars REALbasic books: Newburg vs. Tejkowski, October 22, 2001

By 

Dan Jerry "danjerry" (West Chazy, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: REALBasic: TDG: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition (Definitive Guides) (Paperback)

After more than twenty years programming computers, I decided to learn REALbasic, as I wanted more control over the presentation of my FileMaker databases. I bought REALbasic, the "Standard" version (mistake #1 - it isn't full-featured). Then I bought Newburg's book (mistake #2 - too difficult to start with). Then I upgraded REALbasic to "Professional" (good move), and bought Tejkowski's "REALbasic for Dummies" (at last I could understand!) Don't do as I did. If you REALLY want to learn REALbasic, get the "Professional" version, and BOTH Tejkowski's and Newburg's books. Start with TejKowski; it reads easily; do the examples. When you're through, use Newburg's book to give you the philisophical understanding, and as a reference. The manuals that come with REALbasic are well done, but still - start with "REALbasic for Dummies".

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Detailed and Helpful Tool, December 17, 1999

By 

Benjamin (Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: REALbasic : The Definitive Guide (Paperback)

I studied programming in school but had trouble grasping many of the concepts of programming, so dropped my studies, but continued trying to learn these past few years on my own, venturing in to Visual C++, Visual Basic, and a few others. I gave REALbasic a shot just for fun, and was doing ok, but the Definitive Guide has taken me farther in the month since I got it than in the past years with any language. Now, finally, I'm comfortable enough to purchase the full language and have fun with it.

This book is much better than many of the textbooks I've been through and other books I've purchased for various languages.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dummies and the O'Reilly's book: Which one to buy?, September 1, 2002

By 

macktheknife (Northern, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: REALBasic: TDG: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition (Definitive Guides) (Paperback)

I work in the economic research and finance industry, and while I have some experience with Excel VBA, I am by no means a programmer. I was thus already more or less familiar with object-oriented programming (OOP) and the overall syntax of the Basic language. I had started programming with REALbasic for only a few weeks, and I had purchased both the Dummies and O'Reilly's book. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Dummies: If you already understand OOP and how to write commands in Basic, then you won't need to read half of book. However, Tejkowski takes the reader gently through different topics in REALbasic and actually shows the reader--step by step--on how to do this and that.

O'Reilly's: Much more theoretical and advanced. It actually has less to do with showing the reader how to do something step by step than discussing good programming techniques. Expect to invest the time and patience in reading and understanding it.

The Dummies book is a good start for anyone completely new to REALbasic. I found half the book not useful for my purposes, but it's still a good reference when you want to do certain things, say set up a database. The O'Reilly's book is also a must to understand *why* you need to do certain things in REALbasic. The manuals included with REALbasic are good, and the step-by-step tutorial is excellent, but the O'Reilly book fills in the theoretical underpinnings.

I would recommend both books to anyone who's serious about programming with REALbasic. Assess your programming skills and background honestly to determine which book you should start with.