REBOL 2.7.6 released!

[btiffin]

Hello code fans,

REBOL 2.7.6 was released today. Some very nice enhancements and link library access is now part of the freely redistributable versions of REBOL/Core and REBOL/View.

Read the official announcement here http://www.rebol.net/upnews/0026.html and then follow the link to the builds, which is here http://www.rebol.net/builds/

The zip for windows comes with all the Internet scheme protocol source code, the Viewtop sources including the editor, professional binaries (these have features that require a key, but don't worry ... they are addons, not required for day to day use, especially when load/library is now freed and you get both REBOL/Core for running servers and REBOL/View for everyday development and GUI).

If you haven't experienced REBOL yet, and perhaps don't want to dive right into a full SDK package, there is always the 1.3.2 installer bundles starting at http://rebol.com/download.html

REBOL runs on Windows, Linux, Mac and quite a few others. Built in Internet protocols include http, pop, apop ftp, nntp, smtp, esmtp, raw tcp, udp and then user written news, telnet, and even the one I rewrote, dict.
(find dict at http://rebol.org/library/scripts/dict-scheme.r)

This inherent networking means it as easy to print read file as it is to print read http://compsci.ca. Want to read your email?

code:

mail: read pop://user:pass@mail.example.com foreach message mail [print message]

Do yourself a favour and try it out. A full fledged GUI calculator (again Linux, Mac, Windows) as simply as

code:

REBOL [         Title: "Calculator"         Version: 1.2.2         Date:   17-Jun-2005 ;2-Apr-2001         Author: ["Jeff Kreis" "Allen Kamp" "Carl Sassenrath"]         Purpose: {Simple numeric calculator.}         Needs: [1.3.0] ] auto-clear: true calculate: does [         if error? try [text-box/text: form do text-box/text][                 text-box/text: "Error"                 text-box/color: red         ]         auto-clear: true         show text-box ] clear-box: does [         clear text-box/text         text-box/color: snow         auto-clear: false         show text-box ] calculator: layout [            style btn btn 40x24         style kc btn red [clear-box]         style k= btn [calculate]         style k  btn [                 if auto-clear [clear-box]                 append text-box/text face/text                 show text-box         ]         origin 10 space 4         backeffect base-effect         text-box: field "0" 172x24 bold snow right feel none         pad 4         across         kc "C" keycode [#"C" #"c" page-down]         k "(" #"("  k ")" #")"  k " / " #"/" return         k "7" #"7"  k "8" #"8"  k "9" #"9"  k " * " #"*" return         k "4" #"4"  k "5" #"5"  k "6" #"6"  k " - " #"-" return         k "1" #"1"  k "2" #"2"  k "3" #"3"  k " + " #"+" return         k "0" #"0"  k "-"       k "." #"."         k= green "=" keycode [#"=" #"^m"] return         key keycode [#"^(ESC)" #"^q"] [quit] ] view center-face calculator

http://rebol.com http://rebol.org http://rebol.net

Cheers and Happy pi Day
Brian

[Mackie]

I've got to say, that email reader looks cool.

[btiffin]

There is quite a bit to REBOL that oozes cool. But like chess, the rules are somewhat easy; being a master takes time, effort and a little bent genius.

Scan a web page and print out the hyperlinks ... (where >> is the default console prompt)

code:

>> parse read http://www.rebol.com [any [thru "A HREF=" copy link to ">" (print link)] to end]

Draw a red box that displays hello and then changes to a random colour on each click

code:

>> view layout [box red [print "hello" face/color: random white show face]]

REBOL's RANDOM handles any of its datatypes, and white being 255.255.255 means generate a colour tuple from 0 to 255 for R G and B. Oh, include alpha channel too for transparency 255.255.255.255 but that wouldn't add much to this example.

A little bit of set theory

code:

>> set1: [a d b c g f i i q]  set2: [a b c] >> exclude set1 set2 == [d g f i q]

A red filled blue circle inside a silver button (along with the "REBOL" text label) and an action block that sets the button's text to show the current time and then quits after waiting 5 seconds.

code:

>> view layout [     b: button "REBOL" silver  effect [        draw [pen blue  fill-pen red circle 20x9 6]     ] [face/text: now/time  show face  wait 00:00:05  quit] ]

Just too many features ... and REBOL/View 2.7.6 with installer (released this aft) is still only a 500Kb download. And these samples are just toys; full fledged computer science comes built in, covering just about everything. (System level programming is not really REBOL's forte - it is an interpreter - but that is one of very few areas where REBOL doesn't shine)

Sorry for rambling ladies and gentlemen. Just evangelizin'.
Cheers,
Brian