Syntax Highlighter Module Released for REALbasic Developers

I released my Syntax Highlighter Module for REALbasic Developers today. The example application can be downloaded from http://www.rbtools.net/.

Download the Example Application to test the Syntax Highlighter with the supplied SQL Keywords file or alternatively your own Keywords file.

The Syntax Highlighter Module operates against any EditField in your REALbasic Application. As you type, your words are matched against a text file containing keywords, words that you wish to have highlighted in some way on your EditField, an example would be a SQL Query or a Language Editor.

Whatever you type in the EditField is highlighted if contained within your Keywords File. This text file can be easily created and then edited to include or exclude additional keywords.

The Syntax Highlighter is supplied as an Encrypted RB Module which you include in your own applications. There are no royalty fees involved.

The encrypted module and the unencrypted example application will be sent to you via email following purchase via Paypal from our website at http://www.rbtools.net. This encrypted module can be used in any of your projects without limitation or credit.

To use the Module within your own application, follow these simple instructions:

1. Create your text file of Keywords
2. Load the Keywords file (possibly at program startup) with the following code:
mSyntaxControl.LoadKeywordsFromFile(FILENAME)
3. Place the following code in the EditField TextChange Event:
mSyntaxControl.ChangeText(me,True,True,True,&c0000FF)
The Parameters are: (EditField, Capitals as Boolean, Bold as Boolean, Colour as Boolean, Colour Value)

Words within single or double quotes are not affected and neither are words that are part of another word.

A screenshot of the example program is shown below:



Updates to this module will be made over time as feedback comes in and as it is used in one of my own products I will no doubt be adding enhancements over the next few weeks / months.

www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

Orac and ArtenSUITE Updates

Yesterday was an interesting day. My first task was to do some custom development in ArtenSUITE. Essentially the customer wanted to show his clients on a map with a different icon depending on the type of client (Broker, Individual, Manufacturer etc.) and a different colour depending on the status of the client (yellow = customer, red = on hold etc.).

I sweated on this for a while and then implemented the solution using Google Maps. The HTMLViewer control in REALbasic is very poor and while this caused a few problems I was able to win through in the end. It works well and I impressed even myself :-)

Having earned my corn for the day I decided to make some more changes to Orac my Mac OSX SQL Tool. These changes were based on tester feedback and have in my opinion made the product much better. Although in the early stages of development there does appear to be a lot of interest judging by the download statistics, although not yet much in the way of feedback.

The changes I made were as follows:

1. Enhanced Keyboard Support. If you turn on the 'tab to all controls' option on your Mac, you can now use the keyboard for most things in Orac.

2. The Results List now uses a clearer, larger font by default and if you adjust the font size the row height increases proportionally.

3. The UI has had a major re-design to make everything clearer and more accessible. The window size will now (just!) fit on a 1024 x 768 monitor.

4. The Stored Server setup now allows you to specify the particular type of database this configuration applies to.

5. A lot of behind the scenes work to make working with multiple types of databases and switching between them much easier and cleaner and from my point of view the code will be far more manageable.

You can see a few screenshots below:















www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

Orac: Mac OSX SQL Tool Updated

Orac Update
Version 0.9.6 of Orac is now available for download.

http://www.artenscience.com/autoupdate/latestversions/orac_osx.zip

This version works with Oracle 9i+, and will refuse to connect to an Oracle 8i database. Until I sort out the reason for the issues with 8i I decided it was preferable to not let the software connect at all. 8i support coming soon though :-)

In addition I think the Syntax Highlighting facility is working properly now, all the edge cases that I am aware of have been sorted.



www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

REALbasic Starter Kit

Today I made available the first release of my Starter Kit for REALbasic Developers. The version available for download is a very early 'proof of concept'. The idea came about through talking to associates and friends who are considering moving to REALbasic but dread the initial learning curve.


The RB Starter Kit executable demonstrates and documents a module of predefined functions that will mainly be of use to new and intermediate REALbasic Developers.


The idea at the moment is that purchase of the Starter Kit gives you the source code for the examples application. The module that performs the functions remains encrypted but can be used in any of your projects without restriction.


As well as the module that can be used within your own projects, the source code for the examples application can be used to learn how to do things such as automatically creating a local SQLite database to store the locations and sizes of all the windows in your application, how to populate and react to events on a Listbox Control, use of Toolbars, Menus Etc.


More information from here: http://www.rbtools.net

Orac Update

Version 0.9.4 of Orac is now available for download.

http://www.artenscience.com/autoupdate/latestversions/orac_osx.zip

There are a number of small improvements to this pre-release version, mainly the Syntax Highlighting when entering a SQL Query. You can choose for the SQL Keywords to be formatted as Bold, Uppercase or Coloured, or any combination of the three.

The keywords are derived from a simple text file that comes with the application, therefore additional keywords can be easily added/amended/deleted if necessary.

A screenshot is shown below. Click the image for a larger picture.



www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

R10Cipher 1.1 Free with MacFormat Issue 207 - May 2009

R10Cipher 1.1 is available for free on this months MacFormat magazine.

1.1 supports the easy encryption and decryption of text. Version 2 is needed if you wish to encrypt and decrypt files.

R10Cipher is Cross Platform and available for Mac OSX, Windows (XP,Vista,7) and Linux.

Owners of Version 1.1 are eligible for a 25% discount on Version 2. Contact steve@artenscience.co.uk for details.





www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

Arten Science 1st Quarter Sales Results

I thought it may be of interest to other small software companies if I were to share the results of my sales for the 1st Quarter 2009. I'm not going to show actual values, but you can nevertheless see the trend, which is an important factor given this 'worldwide recession'.

Here is a graph showing my first quarter of internet software sales:



Obviously I am pleased with these results given my lack of marketing budget, and lack of marketing in general. What is significant is that sales in 2009 far exceed 2008 which I believe is mainly down to the fact that I read, and more importantly put into practice some of the advice from Bob Walsh's excellent 'MicroISV Sites that Sell'.

One of the biggest changes I made was to create websites for my individual products, rather than lump them all within the www.artenscience.com website. This had made a big difference I believe. These seperate sites can still all be accessed from my main site but more importantly they now have their own domains as well.

www.protectclientdata.com
www.artensuite.co.uk
www.macvcr.com
www.oractotherescue.com
www.r10cipher.com
www.r10clean.com
www.r10vault.com

I intend this month to spend some time on further refining these websites and doing some marketing. We'll see what difference that makes :-)

How is everybody else doing ?

www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

A Change of Direction for Orac

Following feedback from my last post regarding Orac, my new database query and management tool, I have decided to alter the scope of the development.

For a start I now intend to support Mac OSX only (Universal Binary) and add support for several additional databases. The decision to drop support support for the Linux platform was easy, the Linux community being closely tied to the Open Source movement are not fond of paying for software so that was an easy decision. As for dropping support for Windows, that was a much harder decision.

Although over 80% of my software sales go to Mac users, a product like Orac could potentially draw in more Windows users. However I now believe that the market for this kind of product is adequately covered on Windows and I would be unlikely with my small marketing budget and even less resources to be able to make the effort worthwhile. Therefore I am developing Orac for the Mac and maybe later if the product is successful will I consider making it available for the PC.

I have been unable to find a decent database tool like this for the Mac, there are two available that I know of at a reasonable price, and to be honest I do not like either. I'm stuck with Oracle SQL Developer on the Mac and although it's a fine program it has many limitations, not least it's complexity.

More information on Orac including a pre-release download can be found here: http://www.oractotherescue.com

www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

Developer / Consultant for Hire !

I am coming up to the end of my current software development contract and am now looking for my next project. If you require any software development doing for Windows, Mac or Linux by an experienced developer with 20 years experience then please contact me at steve@artenscience.co.uk. I also do database and security work as well as technology consultancy.

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Pages/Services.html

I am a Chartered Information Technology Professional awarded by the British Computer Society and a Fellow of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers. I am certified in many different technologies from Security to Databases. You can see some comments from my customers here:

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Pages/Pages/Testimonials.html

For examples of my work, all the following websites and the software they advertise, I have created myself:

www.artenscience.co.uk
www.protectclientdata.com
www.artensuite.co.uk
www.macvcr.com
www.oractotherescue.com
www.r10cipher.com
www.r10clean.com
www.r10vault.com

My rates are reasonable and I am happy to work anywhere in Europe.

www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development

Orac: Cross Platform / Multi Database Query and Maintenance Tool

At the weekend I started development on Orac.

Orac is a 'Cross Platform / Multi Database Query and Maintenance Tool'.

In a nutshell this means an application that will run natively on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Macintosh OSX and Linux. Orac is not developed in Java or any other 'runtime' environment, the software is provided as native executables on each platform.

The early versions of Orac operate against Oracle only. Before commercial release it will work with Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Support for further databases will be added following release.

This tool is designed to replace the five or so different tools that I currently use to query and manipulate the databases I support. If I have this problem, then likely so do many other people. Orac will be a one stop shop for database querying and maintenance without the need to even install, let alone load and run the software provided by the database manufacturer. In addition no middle ware or ODBC configuration will be necessary. Orac itself doesn't even need installation. Download and extract the zip file, double click to run. You could keep versions for all your supported operating systems on a USB drive and use them on any computer - no installation necessary.

Orac is a long(ish) term project. I have to earn a living with my consulting gigs as well as finish a couple of other applications over the next few weeks, but I expect Orac to be available for commercial release by the third quarter this year.

With respect to the feature set, I am looking for feedback. If you currently use a commercial or Open Source database management or query tool I would like to hear from you as to what are your favourite features and what features do you wish were available ?

The development of this tool will be very public. Early releases will be available to anybody who wishes to be part of the Alpha / Beta test program. Substantial discounts on the finished product will be given to anyone who contributes significantly to the development in terms of feedback.

Very early screenshots of the Mac OSX versions are shown below. Click the screenshot to view the images full size.







If you would like further information on Orac or would like to join the Alpha / Beta program, please contact steve@artenscience.co.uk

www.artenscience.co.uk
Quality Commercial Software and Custom Software Development