RealWorld Designer

A couple of years ago, the decision was made to adopt the so called “multiple single document interface” used for example by Microsoft Word 2000, where each open document gets its own top-level window. Has the time come to change this approach?

What are the options?

As far as I know, there are 3 major approaches how to handle multiple documents.

Windows within the main frame

This is the classic approach used by many older applications. There is one top level window and one smaller window per open document inside the main frame. There usually is the possibility to maximize one of the sub-windows and hide the others.

One window per document

Each document has its own window and the Windows taskbar is used to switch the active window. RealWord Designer-based applications are currently using this scheme.

Tabbed interface

There is only one top-level window and it contains one tab per open document. Unlike the classic approach, multiple documents cannot be displayed at once, but it is easier to switch documents. An example of a tabbed application is the Google Chrome browser.

Your opinion is needed…

While the classic approach (#1) might be good for experienced computer users, it is unsuitable for the average ones. Also, because RealWorld applications are able to work with documents of different types, it would be hard to make it work. Hence, this approach is ruled out.

The question is: should the future version continue to show each document in its own window or should we switch to the tabbed interface?

Please, let me know your opinion in the comments section.This change would affect all RW apps.

The time has come to leverage the plug-in based nature of RealWorld Designer applications. While the plug-in architecture can help to cut development times of larger projects, its true strength lays in allowing people to make their own plug-ins. Applications released in 2009 will be much more plug-in-friendly :-).

Simplifying it for users

While all RW applications can use plug-ins right now, it is a long and painful procedure to install them. They must be downloaded, installed and registered, enabled for the given application, and manually added to menu or toolbar.

Future versions will be able to detect plug-ins in .dll files placed in the application folder. This simplifies the first part of the installation.

The second part is a bit harder, GUI layout configuration is controlling the whole user interface. It cannot be handed out to plug-ins without compromising the whole system.

That said, there are still ways to simplify the whole thing for some kind of plug-ins. It is likely that there will be insertion points in menu and toolbars and where plug-ins will be able to put themselves.

What about plug-in developers?

A plug-in will be required to export one more function to allow enumeration of COM classes and their categories in a dll. If this function is not present, the plug-in can still be used, but only via the painful procedure described above.

An updated SDK will be released in 2009. The SDK will contain templates for image processing plug-ins with and without ATL. All will be focused on good old unmanaged C++. Support for other language and possibly managed might be introduced later.

Interested in developing a plug-in?

If you would you like to make your own plug-in for any of the RW applications and you have the basic knowledge of C++, send me an email to info@rw-designer.com

While the SDK and the changes described above are not ready yet, I’ll contact you when they are.

After 18 months of development, RealWorld Photos is finally released. The applications targets two main scenarios: retouching of photographs and batch image processing. In both areas it has a couple of unique features to offer.

Why another photo editor?

Isn’t the world already full of different kinds of photo retouching tools? No, there certainly is still room for a software that is able to deliver power without being overly complex. RealWorld Photo’s goal is to deliver the best value when power and ease of use are counted in.

Lossless retouching out of the box

If you are shooting to .jpg, you may or may not know that opening and saving a .jpg file in most cases causes a small quality loss, even if the same quality setting is used. RealWorld Photos reduces this quality loss in cases, where is it possible. If only parts of an image are changed, which is typical when retouching or watermarking, the rest is copied without quality degradation.

Flexible and easy-to-use batch processing

RealWorld Photos can do apply a simple filter in batch, but it can also apply a complex operation consisting of several filter, conditions and cycles thanks to its JavaScript-based scripting engine.

Starting a batch operation is done using drag and drop with mouse. It is also possible to perform batch operations directly from Desktop via a droplet.

Donwload

Get RealWorld Photos retouching software.