Real Software has updated its Real Studio programming environment to its version 4 release with more than 200 improvements and 26 new features, including improved support for Apple's native Cocoa API on Mac OS X as well as upgraded Linux support for printing and graphics. Updating the web and desktop editions a this release, Real Studio is an powered by Realbasic, an object-oriented "sub dialect" of BASIC.
The company confirms that its users have found graphics performance improvements using Cocoa to take them from a point where (for example) an app would take five or six seconds to redraw a screen full of a large number of images and vector objects — to "near instantaneous" results. Real Studio also cites developer comments pleased with the support for Cairo for Linux applications, which comes at the same time as ensured compatibility with the upcoming Windows technologies.
"Significant improvements have been made in this release on Real Studio's Cocoa-based Mac framework and many projects will now simply work when built with it. There are more than 60 Cocoa-specific bug fixes in this release. This feature is still officially labeled as beta until Real Studio 2012 Release 1," said the company.
Other new features include:
- Alpha Channels: Graphics now have support for opacity allowing colors to be drawn that are anywhere from totally opaque to completely transparent.
- Improved Linux Printing: Linux printing at a high resolution can now be accomplished just as it would on Windows or Mac OS X.
- Improved Graphics on Linux: Graphics on Linux now supports smoother drawing, anti-aliasing, translucency, and hardware acceleration.
- Improved ODBC Support: Prepared Statements are now supported for ODBC to improve security.
