Author Archives: trevordevore

Plugin: Script Format Helper

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I often include Revolution code snippets in lessons that I create. Those lessons are most often delivered in HTML or PDF. In order to speed up the process of converting code to the appropriate format I created a plugin called “Script Format Helper” that does the following:

  1. Formats the selected text in the script editor using the Revolution script colorization functions
  2. Converts the script to another format like HTML or a PNG image.


Examples of HTML Snippets

Here is what some sample HTML output looks like without line numbers:

on mouseUp pMouseBtnNo
   if pMouseBtnNo is 1 then
      put "You colorized me!" into theMsg
      answer theMsg
   end if
end mouseUp

Here is what some sample HTML output looks like with line numbers:

    1on mouseUp pMouseBtnNo
    2   if pMouseBtnNo is 1 then
    3      put "You colorized me!" into theMsg
    4      answer theMsg
    5   end if
    6end mouseUp

Get The Plugin

For more information visit the Script Format Helper page.

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Revolution Data Grid Webinar Posted

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Two weeks ago we hosted a webinar discussing the new Data Grid control available in Revolution 3.5. Revolution is the cross-platform development environment that we write all of our desktop software in and ScreenSteps uses the Data Grid control extensively. In the webinar we show how we integrated the Data Grid into ScreenSteps 2.5 and share some tips and tricks that will prove useful to anyone working with Data Grids.

The webinar is about 70 minutes long with a little over half of the time spent presenting and the reset spent answering questions from attendees. To watch the recording just visit the archive page.

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Data Grid Webinar

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A few weeks ago Kevin Miller, Bill Marriott (both of Runtime Revolution) and I put on a webinar that introduced the new Data Grid in Revolution 3.5. The data grid was originally developed for ScreenSteps so that we could provide our customers with a much more responsive UI when working with large libraries and lessons. We were thrilled when Revolution decided to integrate it into their core product.

Given the extremely positive response by attendees, Greg and I thought people might be interested in seeing how ScreenSteps 2.5 uses data grids throughout the application. So we’ve added a new webinar to our webinars page entitled Using Data Grids in Revolution 3.5. In the webinar we will show you:

  • The various UI elements created using the data grid.
  • The techniques used to create some of the visuals.
  • The techniques used to hook the data grids up to data from SQLite, stacks, folder contents and the web.

We also plan on providing ample time to answer questions people might have. So join us on Thursday April 30th if you want to improve your data grid chops.

Sign up for webinar

Update: The webinar video has been posted in our archive.

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A Little Revolution Does A Developer Good

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Round here we develop all of our desktop applications using Revolution. I recently attended the RunRevLive 08 conference in Las Vegas where one of the speakers was Robert Cailliau, the co-developer of the web. Robert spoke on “Programming systems and the birth of the Web”. Following a very interesting presentation on how the web came about he discussed some characteristics he thought a good programming language should have:

  • You should not need the reference manual lying open next to you.
  • A good assignment operator.
  • The less “swear” characters the better. These are characters from the top of the keyboard and are like the top shelf at a newsstand – dirty.
  • You should not need lots of comments.

His point was that you spend most of your time reading your code, not writing it. Therefore the language should be easy to read and understand. Since Revolution uses an english-like syntax it fulfills all of Robert’s criteria.

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