RunRev Enterprise 3.0

While I was searching a development tool that suit me: cross platform, not to steep learning curve (hopefully visual RAD, as I code in Delphi all the time), functionalities and plugins, and mostly price and user’s forum and support.

And one more, not Java-based. No, not because I hate Java, but there are plenty Java development tools, and I use NetBeans and Eclipse.

I found some tools, based on C/C++, Python, Ruby, BASIC (PureBasic and FreeBASIC) and of course FreePascal’s Lazarus.

And also Runtime Revolution.
I downloaded the trial version, install and trying, subscribed to the forum, but still I can not use it to create application
It’s totally different with other language that I have tried, yet I think I like it…

Then there’s a Rev Holiday Megabundle that I can not resist !
So I went there and bought Enterprise version, for USD499 we have some very useful add ons.

If you need a cross platform software development, visual RAD, affordable price, good support and forum, it’s good to check RunRev, and for once in a year deal, go to Rev Holiday Megabundle, see how much you save.

I already used it for daily use, but for spreadsheet I still use Excell after bad experience with OOo, which a simple COUNTIF() gave me wrong result because after little more test, seems OOo doesn’t support ‘wildcard’, but well, back to Lotus Symphony, LS Document is ok, though it’s nice if we can configure shortcuts; LS Presentation, maybe just me, full screen is not full screen, Windows’ taskbar still visible.

I just downloaded Lotus Symphony Windows Beta 2, and will check the spreadsheet.

Available to download from:

• IBM Resource, you will need your IBM ID or register for free
• Softpedia, no registration to IBM required to download

If you install Lotus Symphony after OpenOffice, almost all extensions will be redirect to LS, without notice

It seems the interface much differ with other office suite, but I guess I will like it just let see after use it for more times.
Btw, after installation it will take over all OpenOffice’s .ODT. I don’t remember whether it asked me to replace it or not.

Forgot to mention, in Windows, time needed to launch Lotus Symphony just about OpenOffice, if not faster a little. I will use it parallel with OpenOffice and maybe with MS Office 2007.

And then I used BASIC compiler, QuickBASIC 4.5 (heh, I still remember the version number !), TurboBASIC. And stayed with PowerBASIC for sometimes in those “golden era of text dominion”.

When Windows came, I tried Visual Basic Windows but I thought I did not like it. That’s just before I found Borland Delphi 1, (which I stick to until just now).

Then there were no BASIC for me . (Okay, except some VB scripts…)

But I always like BASIC, good for doing quickly-developed small stuff that do only one or two things.
I have tried many variants of BASIC: Euphoria, xBasic, xBLite, Gambas (yeah, it comes with most Linux), PureBASIC (commercial, cheap, GOOD!), and the RealBASIC, BASIC for the pro (and quite pricey too …). and RealBASIC Standard Edition for Linux is available for FREE.

Sometimes ago while I was visiting a free Assembler, I read article about FreeBASIC.
It was v0.15 something, and I found out that FreeBASIC is FREE, Open Source,
FAST (yes, find info in the forum why) and cross platform for Windows and Linux. There are some IDEs for FreeBASIC, and FBEdit is one of that. That’s it, I have found my BASIC.

FreeBASIC do not have a complete documentation yet, but FreeBASIC forum is good and contains useful resources and you will find nice people there !

Last thing, a guy nicked sir_mud made this FreeBASIC portable: FreeBASIC On the Go.
You can bring it along with other applications from Portable Apps, or your own.
And the nice part of On the Go, you can launch a batch file to update your copy of FreeBASIC with the daily update. Cool.

Meanwhile I still follow UPP (Ultimate++) development, and found version 609 dev. 3 just released.
After downloading and successfully installed, I compiled my example application, and found that the directory lister did not show my USB drive. I thought I did wrongly, so I compiled CompDir from the demos package, and it also did not show the USB drives.
But I don’t have time to investigate and visiting UPP’s forum.

Busy with Python and Java…

I spend more time learning Ultimate++, it’s a complete development tools, framework and IDE. Able to use GCC or free Microsoft Visual C++.
This is my first time with C/C++, I expect some times learning-curve…

FPC-Lazarus, Free Pascal with Lazarus for visual editing.
Simply, because I already knew how to code in Pascal

And Python…
I don’t know, but many applications said “use python for scripting”, so I think it’s good to know Python, and then I found pyGTK for GUI thing…

And there are some other tools that I am going to learn: Gentee, open source and cross platform, and maybe I will take Suneido which is Windows only, maybe it’s good for “quicky”

Ultimate++ or UPP (Ultimate Plus Plus) is a cross-platform rapid development toolkit in C++. It consists of :

• Cross platform GUI toolkit, a set of C++ libraries that form Ultimate++ or U++ with main libraries (or called package here)
  1. “Core” is the core of U++
  2. “CtrlCore” is the base for all Controls (or Widgets)
  3. “CtrlLib” is the Controls
  4. other non visual packages
• TheIDE, as the name implied, is … the IDE !
  In there we will meet:
  1. Assist++ that will assist us along TheIDE, a powerful C++ code analyzer with code-completion, navigation, etc.
  2. Topic++ that help us writing document while coding (so, hopefully we documenting our codings better )
  3. Layout Designer, so we can visually design the dialog or form.
  4. Resource Editor

UPP environment is quite different with other tools, for example, Project in UPP is not the project as in other tools which is called Package in UPP.
UPP’s license allows us to develop closed application. You can find it at http://upp.sourceforge.net/app$ide$About$en-us.html

Installation
We can find distribution file at UPP’s official site which is hosted by Sourceforge at http://upp.sourceforge.net
We can download UPP packed with MinGW (gcc), download UPP only binary if we already have MinGW installed or want to use another compilers supported by UPP (Visual C++ 7.1, or 8.0, or free Visual C++ Toolkit 2003, or Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition)

Linux version also available at UPP Site, although I have not yet have chance to try it.
And, also, you can download the latest public betas at UPP Sourceforge Project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/upp

I use default setting of UPP installation (just click Next until Finish…) and it set C:upp for UPP files (there’s a warning mentioning that is not safe to put our files inside the folder), and MyApps for all projects that we will created.

Try Out
Now we try out our just installed UPP.
Launch UPP, and we will have the Opening Dialog:

As an appetizer, let’s just open a package from examples folder: Click “example” at the left box, click “Days” package, and click [OK].

You will find that UPP is optimized for coding: screen estate is efficient, only menu-bar and toolbar and I even make them in one row (Setup | Environment | IDE, check Menu and toolbar in a row)

On the top, menubar (1), and toolbar (2) set to be in one row with menubar.
Packages used are listed in the top-left box (3), if you click a package, file contained will be listed in left-box (4) below package listbox, and the biggest area is the editor.
On the file list, there’s a file with .lay extension (Days.lay) this is a layout file, if we click it the Layout editor will be shown replacing the Text editor (6)
It’s better to try it yourself

Running an example
Before we running Days application, we need to setup our compiler.


I use MinGW compiler, and set optimization to Size (left drop-down button to select Compiler, right drop-down to select optimization).
Worth to note is that UPP employed BLITZ-build technology to speedup C++ rebuild, but for the first built will need quite some times. In my system AMD Athlon 1.8/512MB it took good 10 minutes, but later on it is fast: only need time to compile our package and link. But if we change the optimization, for example to Speed and it has never been build before, you have to give some times for BLITZ to prepare the libraries.
All files are placed inside a folder named Compiler.Optimization.AppType, under Out folder, for example with default installation and compiler setting: MinGW optimized to Size:

• Core package will be in: c:uppoutCoreMINGW.Force_size.Gui
• CtrlCore package will be in: c:uppoutCtrlCoreMINGW.Force_size.Gui
• Our Days package (or project), will be in: c:uppoutDaysMINGW.Force_size.Gui.Main
• and all executables will be in c:uppoutMINGW.Force_size.Gui, so our Days.exe will be in that folder after compilation and linking.

Now we build Days application,

by pressing F5 key, or choose from Debug menu.
Build process is shown in Console box below the Editor, Build log below is shown after BLITZ process, and it is fast, as mentioned above, time needed only for compilation and linking.

And, here is our Days application, calculate days between two given dates:

To open another package (remember, in UPP it is called package while in other tools it is called project or solution), you can select it from “File | Set main package” and you will have that Opening Dialog.

Next time we will create a simple application ourselves