Real Software, creator of REALbasic, a
cross-platform development environment for
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux developers, has begun
shipping REALbasic 2008 Release 4. This release
includes over 300 improvements and six new
features. New functionality in REALbasic 2008
Release 4 includes:

° Control Locking, which adds the ability to lock
a control in the IDE so it’s position and size
can’t be edited. This is useful for positioning
controls at design time on complex User
Interface’s to prevent accidentally modifying the
control, according to the folks at Real Software.

° Tab Stops, which allow users to specify
controls to be skipped over when tabbing through
the user interface at runtime.

° REALbasic can now automatically determine the tab order for all controls.

° REALbasic now includes several new warnings, as
well as a new User Interface to set per-project
preferences on what warnings to receive.

° The REALbasic compiler now allows the use of
constants and enumerations in declarations. For
example, constants can now be used as part of a
method’s optional parameter declaration or to
define enumeration values in terms of other
constants.

° Codesign for Mac OS X Applications:, which
enables developers to digitally sign REALbasic
applications. Digitally signed applications
provide greater security because the application
can be traced back to the author. One way this is
used on the Mac is with Mac OS X Leopard Server.
Applications installed on Leopard Server must be
authorized by the user each time they are
launched. Digitally signed applications need only
be authorized once, says Real Software President
Geoff Perlman.

REALbasic 2008 Release 4 will be offered in
Spanish for the first time. REALbasic is also
available in French, German, Italian, Chinese and
Japanese.REALbasic Personal Edition for Mac or
Windows is priced at US$100. REALbasic for Linux
Personal Edition is offered for free. REALbasic
Professional Edition, required for cross-platform
deployment, is $500. All versions of REALbasic
are available now and can be download directly
from REAL Software
(http://www.realsoftware.com/download).