REALBasic: TDG, 2nd Edition

Part II. User Interface

The Macintosh utilizes a graphical user interface (GUI), and you’ll probably want your application to take advantage of this. From the user’s point of view, the interface is the visual metaphor that most distinctively characterizes your application. From your point of view as a programmer, the interface is your line of communication with the user, operating in both directions: not only will a well-designed interface present the user with good visual cues for navigating your application and viewing information, but also it is the means whereby your application will be aware that the user is giving it commands and interacting with it.

REALbasic makes it easy to construct and manage your application’s interface through a number of built-in classes that handle this bidirectional communication—on the one hand, presenting the visual interface to the user by drawing and updating the screen, and on the other hand, receiving communications from the user by way of the mouse and keyboard. These classes include such familiar components of the visual arsenal as windows, buttons, editable text fields, and so forth. Part II describes these classes, explaining how your code can most easily and effectively manage them, to dictate what appears on the screen and to respond to user actions.

Many of these classes have a second purpose quite apart from their onscreen interactive abilities. Through their properties and built-in functionality, they are often your best ...