RB CodeHelper Lite: Now Available But....

RB CodeHelper Lite (described previously in this blog) is now available, but...

It has NOT been extensively beta-tested. In particular, it has not been adequately tested on the Mac. If you have a Mac, use it at your own risk. In addition, your downloading it is conditional upon your wilingness to supply some feedback as to whether it works properly.

I do not (yet) own a Mac, so - although RB CodeHelper Lite (RBCHL) seems to work fine in Windows - it may or may not run well (and perhaps may not run properly at all) on a Mac. I hope I made appropriate adjustments for the differences between Windows and the Mac, but I have no way of testing that for myself to make sure.

Here are some of the differences that could affect the running of RBCHL:

(1) EndOfLine is different for the Mac, Linux, and Windows. For the Mac, the EndOfLine marker is Chr(13); for Linux, it is Chr(10); but for Windows, it is Chr(13) + Chr(10). But that's not all. Unlike the Mac and Linux (where the same EndOfLine marker is used consistently), Windows uses a different EndOfLine marker in an EditField than it does elsewhere. Specifically it uses Chr(13) rather than Chr(13) + Chr(10).

(2) Not having a Mac, I'm not able to test whether or not I've set up the FileTypes to work correctly on a Mac. I'm not sure, for example, what to indicate for "MacType" and "MacCreator." Nor do I really know what to put down for the settings for "MinimumMemory" or "SuggestedMemory" on the Mac. It could be that incorrect settings here could prevent the program from running properly on a Mac.

(3) In RB CodeHelper Lite, I load the entire XML file (sometimes 15000+ lines) into an EditField, and I've had no problems. I have been told by a couple of Mac users, however, that it is not a good idea to load that large a string into an EditField on a Mac. It has caused me no trouble at all in Windows, but it may not be as safe on a Mac.

If you do download RB CodeHelper Lite, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you as to the results, particularly if you're using a Mac. You may want to start with smaller Projects and perhaps stay away from the XML tab entirely (although the contents of the EditField on the Source tab can also be fairly large).

Here's the basic eight-step procedure for testing RB CodeHelper Lite:

(1) From the RB IDE, load in a Project and use File --> Save As with "File as type:" set to "XML Project (*.xml)" to save the Project as an XML file.

(2) Exit RB, Run RB CodeHelper Lite, and use File --> Open XML File to load in the file you just saved.

(3) Try some simple things, such as changing the line spacing, displaying a list of controls in the Project, or adding an automatic procedure header or footer to each Method. The Main Menu Tab is where you tell RB CodeHelper Lite what to do. Rather than use the PushButton at the bottom of the page, you can double-click a category to expand it or on an item to perform the task.

(4) If you've done something that modifies the program (rather than just analyzes the data), you can see the result of what you've done on the Source Tab or XML Tab (but, as I said, you may want to avoid doing that if it's a large file and you have a Mac "classic").

(5) If desired, in RB CodeHelper Lite you can use File --> Save XML File to save the result to disk. (As long as you keep a copy of your original .RB or .RBP file, you're safe even if RB CodeHelper Lite should mess up the XML file. I don't expect that to happen, but CodeHelper is still insufficiently tested, particularly on the Mac, so it's possible.)

(6) Then, if you like, you can use File --> Open with "Files of type:" set again to "XML Project (*.xml)" to load the XML file into RB 5.5.x or RB 2005 to look at the code or to run the program to confirm that it still runs as before.

(7) Then, if you're pleased with the result, you can use File --> Save As with "Files of type:" set to "REALbasic Project (*.rbp, *.rb)" to save the Project as a normal (.RB) REALbasic program file.

(8) Finally (and this is a really important step), you need to let me know the results, particularly of any problems you may have encountered.

Incidentally, I've decided to set up a special blog specifically for REALbasic users who are running RB in Windows. You'll find it at this address:

http://traverrbw.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

Barry Traver

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Home Page for This Blog: http://traverrb.blogspot.com/

Programs and Files Discussed in the Blog: http://traver.org/traverrb/