About REALbasic=AE 4 Alpha
24 September 2001

REALbasic 4 a1 is the first alpha release of REALbasic 4, and all that
implies. Alphas represent the earliest stages of a new release. At this
point, development focuses on implementing sweeping changes and introducing
new technologies, as well as addressing existing issues which require
extensive re-engineering. For that reason, we highly recommend that you
keep backups of projects that you work with in the alpha and test
extensively any projects you compile and distribute.

What's new in REALbasic 4:
All new ListBox: GridLines/CellBorders, improved Hierarchical highlight,
flicker-free scrolling, improved preview in the Window Editor and more!

RbScript compiler: RbScript compiles to machine code on PowerPC machines.
Note: the RbScript compiler introduces some stability issues. Ahem.

All new single-line EditField: On system 8.6 and newer, 32k text limit is
eliminated and on Mac OS X text displays using CoreGraphics. Note: this
control is used extensively in the IDE and please review the known issues
listed in the release notes before reporting bugs.

Event order consistency: much progress on ensuring that Win32 and Mac event
order is more consistent.

Plug-in SDK update: substantial updates to the plug-in SDK.

Read the release notes for more details.

Note: tea-leaf readers should remember that this is alpha ONE. Speculation
regarding the final makeup of the shipping version based on what's in this
alpha release are largely a waste of time.

Important note: If you have a valid REALbasic 3.5 license, this alpha will
allow you to use REALbasic 4 with the same capabilities. Otherwise,
REALbasic will run in demo mode, which does allow compiling. Applications
compiled while REALbasic is in demo mode run for only five minutes at a
time and expire after thirty days. Database access is limited to fifty rows
of data.

(http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/prerelease/prerelease.html)