ljensen.com - UTool

ljensen.com	UTool

UTool

OK, today's the day you're finally going to write a little REALbasic utility to handle that recurring chore that's constantly sucking up time and being annoying.

And you want it to have some panache, so that when your co-workers run it, they'll say "Hey, nice tool, where did you get that?" and you can off-handedly reply "Oh, you know, I just whipped it up." (Especially around performance review time.)

But dang it, you don't have all day to fuss with the details, you just want to get the thing done!

Got 30 seconds? Open up a copy of the UTool project, edit a few constants, and presto—you've got an app with:

a main window that remembers its own position and size between sessions!	a modest help window that can easily be expanded or just left as plain text (and also remembers its position)!	a nice-looking about box with clickable URLs and a link to the help window!

a simple, flexible, extensible preferences facility that you can re-use in any project!	appropriate cross-platform behavior on Mac Classic, OS X, and Windows, including menu item placement, accelerators, etc.!	file and folder support using drag & drop to the main window or the application icon, as well as recent items!

REALbasic newbies and crusty old veterans alike will love all the handy helper routines and classes for oft-needed and fundamental (but sometimes tricky) techniques like control extensions, text file I/O, menu handling, file and folder iteration...

Everything's ready for you to start injecting your tool-specific code and UI. Download the source and glance at the instructions in the Help window or the brief but helpful ReadMe file.

UTool is free, without restrictions or warranties of any kind. It contains well-commented, straightforward code, so you can customize with confidence. In less time than it took you to read this, you'll be up and tooling!

Download	Size (approx)	Format
UTool source code and ReadMe file for REALbasic 5.5.2 and later (works with Mac Classic, Mac OS X, Windows, and possibly Linux)	80 KB	Zip

Releases

2.0f011	8/26/06	-	Refined auto-quit behavior in MainWindow.Close.
		-	Removed RB 200X syntax (now works with 5.5.2+ again).
		-	Fixed error in App long version.
2.0f010	8/23/06	-	Fixed intermittent error when saving preferences on quit.
2.0f009	6/19/05	-	Can now drag to log field on Windows if using RB 2005.
2.0f008	5/25/05	-	Added recently-opened item to File menu (with full-path preference).
2.0f007	5/18/05	-	Improved drag-and-drop comments in code and ReadMe.
2.0f006	5/02/05	-	Added Keys and Values methods to DictionaryHelpers module.
2.0f005	4/06/05	-	Minor revisions to diagnostics and exception handling.
2.0f004	4/06/05	-	Fixed an exception in Page Setup.
		-	Fixed old version info in Build Settings.
2.0f003	3/31/05	-	Fixed a variable name conflict.
2.0f002	3/31/05	-	About box remembers its position.
2.0f001	3/31/05	-	All-new version 2 for REALbasic 5.5.2 and up, with: - example preferences window - better preferences API and storage - easy-to-edit constants for build parameters - built-in drag-and-drop for files and folders - numerous new "Helper" classes and modules - implementations of Print and Page Setup - corrected menu behavior on Windows - better windows menu accelerators & titles - improved, more consistent coding style and comments - extensive comments and a ReadMe file!
1.0d003	5/18/03	-	Revised Preferences system for easier re-use elsewhere.
1.0d002	5/02/03	-	Bug fix: Now remembers window positions if quit via File menu.
1.0d001	11/20/02	-	First release. (Send me bugs and feedback!)

http://ljensen.com /utool