Douglas Wagner,
The expression is 'a piece of cake'...
It is obvious from your little REALBasic script showing us how you count the
number of items in a popUpMenu that you have spent very little time with
REALBasic.
For anyone who has had any experience with any of the X-talk scripting
languages using the 'Transcript' language is 'like falling off a log'...
The delivery of the 'Transcript Dictionary' is very like how the HyperTalk
syntax was presented in HyperCard... it worked, thousands of people learnt
to develop their stacks and applications through the 'HyperTalk Reference'
stack, SuperCard improved on the idea but both are very similar.
There are a number of development environments available for application
development MetaCard, REALBasic, SuperCard and now to add to the competition
Revolution to name but a few. All have different pricing structures that
have no doubt come about with careful thought from the marketing departments
of their respective companies.
Both REALsoftware and Revolution let you try their software so that you are
able to decide which tool might be better for yourself... (for what it is
worth I am of the opinion that Revolution's 'Starter Kit' offer is more than
generous.) I would suggest that you play with the 'Free' versions of the
application development tools for a while before spending your hard earned
cash on a tool that might not suit you.
This list is not the place to discuss how much should be paid for which
product... this list is for helping each other to 'use' various aspects of
Revolution and the 'Transcript Language' that others might be having trouble
with... even how to do the little things like' How to count the number of
items in a popUpMenu'...
Application version numbers only serve to tell you which is the latest
version of a particular application...( There was Macromedia UltraDev 1.0
and then along came UltraDev 4.0... work that one out.)
Geoff Canyon is quite correct when he mentions that Revolution has a head
start over REALBasic, since Revolution draws on all the experience of X-talk
development since the introduction of HyperTalk and all the subsets of it
since 1987... REALSoftware are the first to try and bring OOP (Object
Orientated Programming) to Basic. (I hope I don't crash and burn on that
statement.) I do however disagree with Geoff Canyon that 'REALBasic's
environment does less, and is therefore simpler,...' but that discussion is
for another day.
If, as you have said, you have spent time with HyperTalk and AppleScript you
should have no problems whatsoever with Transcript...
Happy scripting,
John Dixon.
