Since r3 was released today, I figure it's only fitting to tell everyone what my favorite features are.
So here's my love list, in no particular order:
- More stable IPCSockets on Windows. IPC never really went over well with me in its original incarnation because I had to hack something together using memory-mapped files on Windows. It always seemed like a hack to me. Then one more, at about 6am, I had an idea of how to fix them once and for all in an un-hackish way. Poof, instant stability.
- Better accessiblity support on Windows. Things like BevelButtons, DisclosureTriangles, etc are now keyboard accessible, which simply thrills me. You get to reap the rewards of this change immediately in the IDE: the find dialog and method/properties/etc editors are now keyboard accessible. On top of that goodness, there's also a native StaticText (so now it works with screen readers) on Windows, and the totally awesome contextual menu that lets you check keyboard mnemonics in the window editor. Great stuff!
- Better visual support for controls. This is especially true of themed support for controls. Things like disclosure triangles are now theme-savvy on Windows, the listbox is drawing better, etc. A lot of this came about due to my working in Vista since it was painfully obvious where we were missing the boat.
- ComboBox.AutoComplete now works on Windows. Totally awesome, I really dig this feature!
- The new Continue and Exit language features. I hate gotos, and now I offically never have to use one again.
Of course, there are plenty of other goodies in there that I'm failing to mention (such as the bunches of RB3D features, etc) simply because I don't want to rehash the entire set of release nots. I think this is going to be a great release!
# The new Continue and Exit language features. I hate gotos, and now I offically never have to use one again.
Amen.
-- SirG3
So what about getting the powers that be to upload new Screen shots for the REALbasic 2005 IDE for Windows? They still look like R1 to me.
Also I just noticed something with one of my REALbasic 2005 R2 compiled Apps on Windows... The App Menus do not automatically display the AcceleratorKey underscores like other Windows applications (such as Firefox). Once you click the Alt key, they appear but until then the menus appear like they would on the Macintosh.
Since I am not primarily a Windows user, I don't know if that is normal behavior or not.
Good point, those should be updated. I'll send an email to the webmaster.
As for the behavior you're seeing -- it's normal, and FireFox is doing the wrong action (and for the right reasons -- the default SUCKS).
Right click on the desktop, select Properties. Select the Appearance tab. Then select the Effects button, and there's an option to hide mnemonics. It's set to true by default on some OSes, and is a horrible idea.
Nice work on R3, the menus and shortcuts seem to be way more stable! I haven't had a chance to set down and play yet but I do like what I see.
I don't know what sort of work was done on those. I know under the hood they're still the same, since none of my changes have been checked in.
As to shortcuts... they "seem" to be working in a much more consistant way (on the mac IDE). For example before pressing opt-clover-m wouldn't start a menu Method on an object, I'd either have to use the menu or toolbar. Now it always works.
Arg! I turns out there was a build process breakdown, and my autocomplete listbox changes aren't exposed. Well, I take that back, they are, but you have to hack a .beh file to expose the AutoComplete property.