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Revolution
Developer(s)Runtime Revolution, Ltd
Stable release
3.0 / September 2008
Operating systemMac OS X, Mac OS 9, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris
TypeProgramming
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteRuntime Revolution, Ltd

Runtime Revolution is a development environment of the Revolution programming language developed by Runtime Revolution, Ltd in Edinburgh, Scotland for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.

History

Revolution began as an expert IDE for MetaCard, a development environment and GUI toolkit originally developed for UNIX development and later ported to support Microsoft Windows and Mac OS compilation. Runtime Revolution, Ltd acquired MetaCard in July 2003 and released subsequent versions under the Revolution brand.

MetaCard built on the success of its predecessor HyperCard. Both HyperCard and MetaCard utilized an English-like language that arguably was easier to learn than BASIC.

Environment

The Revolution environment consists of a powerful and easy to use programming language, called Transcript, an IDE framework, and an engine, which are all used together as a Rapid Application Development solution for cross platform development. It natively supports both older PPC based Mac OS X targets and the newer Intel based Mac OS X; Revolution was the first third party development IDE to support Mac OS X on Intel.

Revolution projects can be deployed as standalone applications or as Revolution Player files. Revolution Player files utilize the Revolution Player as an external Runtime.

The IDE allows building of graphical user interface by dragging controls into a visual environment, with interactive feedback and modification of existing and custom properties through property inspectors. The Revolution control palette includes both native application controls (edit fields, menus, buttons, operating system specific dialogs) as well as media controls such as a movie player and support for direct control over audio, text-to-speech, transparency and blend modes of all visual objects and more.

Although Revolution generates cross-platform applications, it is still possible to add operating system specific features. For example, it is possible to utilize Quartz graphical features of Mac OS X, execute VB Scripts on Windows, and run UNIX shell applications.

Revolution can support third-party media such as QuickTime (including Quicktime VR) and Flash.

Documentation

Runtime Revolution contains a built-in help system.

A wiki for user-authored documentation: richmondsrevolution.pbwiki.com.

Platforms

Revolution runs on:

  • Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, and Vista
  • the following UNIX variants:
    • FreeBSD or BSDI
    • HP-UX 10.20 or later
    • SGI IRIX 5.3 or later
    • Linux Intel 1.2.13 ELF or later
    • AIX 3.2.3 or later
    • Solaris 2.5 or later (also 2.3 and 2.4 for SPARC systems only)
    • SunOS 4.1.x or later

Standalone applications written in Revolution can run on the above, as well as Windows 3.1 and Windows Vista (with limitations).

Current Editions

Revolution has three editions: Media (entry-level), Studio (core product) and Enterprise.

Revolution Media is an entry level product that includes all of the controls and general features and includes wizard-like templates for media oriented solutions. Revolution Media projects always display a backdrop, do not have database connectivity built in and are limited to playback using Revolution Player.

Revolution Studio allow development and debugging on a single operating system but compilation to all supported operating systems from the same source code. Revolution Studio includes drivers for several databases, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Paradigma Software Valentina (Database).

Revolution Enterprise allow development and debugging on all supported operating systems and includes drivers for Oracle and SSL.

Studio and Enterprise editions offer per-user (not per-machine) licenses. The owner may install and use the software on as many computers as they personally use.

See also

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