Sticky: USEFUL REBOL DOCUMENTS AND RESOURCES
This sticky topic will be used to collect links to Rebol documentation and resources. The main doc pages on rebol.com contain a lot of useful material, especially for R2:
http://www.rebol.com/docs.html
http://www.rebol.com/tutorials.html
Everyone should read the Rebol/Core book by Carl Sassenrath (covers R2):
http://www.rebol.com/docs/core23/rebolcore.html
And keep the Dictionary link handy:
http://www.rebol.com/docs/dictionary.html
The R2 dictionary script below presents nicely formatted help text and clickable examples which clarify how all Rebol's functions work. The majority of the Rebol language is covered, and everything is organized into helpful categories, and cross referenced with other related functions, so you can quickly find and use the code you need (type this in the Rebol console):
do http:// re-bol.com/wordbrowser.r
To learn the basics of Rebol/View (R2 GUI, graphics and other additions to Rebol/Core), the links in the "Graphical Programming" section of http://www.rebol.com/docs/docs.html cover the majority of what's needed.
My most recent little tutorial is a quick introduction to practical Rebol, intended for non-programmers, but fast paced enough for developers coming from other tools (20+ app examples in about 1-2 hours):
http:// re-bol.com/starting_computer_programming_with_rebol.html
The most in-depth of my R2 tutorials is 850 pages (it includes some materials and explanation not found in the more visible http://re-bol.com tutorial):
http://business-programming.com
Both those bigger tutorials have lots of links to additional documentation materials for each topic (scattered documents that were all helpful to me at some point). And of course the tutorial texts attempt to explain and consolidate useful code in context (the majority of code examples in those texts is collected at http://re-bol.com/examples.txt ).
I could re-post the hundreds of R2 documentation links found in my tutorials, here, but I'm not sure if they would be as helpful out of context.
The situation for R3 isn't nearly as mature yet. R3 is the open source release of Rebol, which has been ported to Android and, together with Red, will likely be the versions to be improved in the future. R3 tools are not as mature as R2's yet, but it's entirely usable for lots of work. I wrote a basic tutorial at:
http:// learnrebol.com
More specific overview tutorials about Saphirion R3-GUI are at:
http://development.saphirion.com/rebol/r3gui/
At the link above you'll find specific tutorials about Getting Started, Faces, Layouts, Resizing, Actors, and Styles. Once you've read http://learnrebol.com , you'll probably want to continue with the docs above, to get into the next level of understanding. I made a copy of those docs here, just in case their site goes down:
http://re-bol.com/saphirion-r3guidocs.zip
If you want more low level documentation examples about R3-GUI, see:
https://github.com/saphirion/documentation
(especially the documentation/r3/r3-gui folder)
The examples at the links above cover a lot of practical USE details. If you really want a low level understanding of how R3-GUI WORKS, look at the source:
http://github.com/saphirion/r3-gui
It's important to note that everything in Rebol is self documenting. You can get the source of the 'layout function in the console:
source layout
You'll see, for example, that in the 'layout source, the 'make-window-layout function is used:
source make-window-layout
You'll see in the 'make-window-layout source, for example, that the 'guie object is referenced:
? guie
You can explore any of the properties of that object using path notation:
? guie/styles/text-list
? guie/styles/text-list/facets
The 'system object also has some paths you should get to know:
? system/view/event-types
R3-GUI implements a simple user DSL for creating GUIs, but under the hood, there's a lot of complex functions, objects, etc., making the magic happen. Learning how to USE R3-GUI is relatively simple. The best way to do that is to read and experiment with all the tutorial examples at the links above, in the order suggested. If you want a lower level understanding of how it's actually defined, and how it WORKS at a lower level, then the source is the best documentation. Together with the 'help and 'source functions, the Github links will get you as deep as you want to go (if you want to move beyond using, and work on developing R3-GUI).
The community still hangs out most in the Rebol4 group on AltME. That's the best place to talk with everyone, if you really want to get involved in the community:
http://www.altme.com/download.html
The Rebol and Red rooms at stackoverflow.com have also been a fairly active meeting place for new users on the web during the past year:
http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/291/rebol-and-red
And be sure to watch Red development at http://www.red-lang.org/ I think most of the Rebol community is waiting for Red to surpass R3's capabilities sometime in the next year or so. Doc is actively developing it.
posted by: Nick 19-Jan-2014/18:29:47-8:00
Be sure to check out http://www.codeconscious.com/rebol/r2-to-r3.html for a nice list of differences between R2 and R3. I also covered some basic differences between R2 VID and R3-GUI at http://business-programming.com/business_programming.html#section-18.3
posted by: Nick 20-Jan-2014/8:40:20-8:00
This PDF tutorial for R2 is another quick run-through which may help clarify the basics for new users:
http://www.rebol.com/docs/rebol-tutorial-3109.pdf
posted by: Nick 20-Jan-2014/11:22:06-8:00
The books by French author Olivier Auverlot were recently made available for free, including one translated to English:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=olivier+auverlot
posted by: Nick 21-Jan-2014/13:47:05-8:00
Here's the direct link to the English version of Rebol - A programmer's guide:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/olivier-auverlot-and-peter-william-alfred-wood/rebol-a-programmers-guide/ebook/product-17515075.html
posted by: Nick 21-Jan-2014/16:04:33-8:00
Probably the single most important online resource is http://rebol.org . That site maintains a searchable history of several hundred thousand posts from both the mailing list and AltME, along with a rich script archive. You can typically find answers to just about any question, already in the archives.
posted by: Nick 22-Jan-2014/6:39:32-8:00
The GUI docs at http://www.rebol.com/r3/docs/gui/gui.html were created by Carl, and aren't entirely up to date with Saphirion R3 releases, but they are still very important. Lots of basic understanding about R3-GUI, plus detailed documentation about things like DRAW are available there.
posted by: Nick 22-Jan-2014/6:53:01-8:00
Some pages about 'bind:
http://www.pat665.free.fr/doc/bind.html
http://blog.revolucent.net/2009/07/deep-rebol-bindology.html
http://www.rebol.net/wiki/Bindology
http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&topicnumber=10&archiveflag=archive
posted by: Nick 24-Jan-2014/2:28:01-8:00
Comparing R2 and R3 bind:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14818324/what-is-the-summary-of-the-differences-in-binding-behaviour-between-rebol-2-and
posted by: Nick 24-Jan-2014/2:29:16-8:00
Introduction to the idea of creating Rebol dialects:
http://re-bol.com/starting_computer_programming_with_rebol.html#section-3
Another introductory explanation, with links to articles with code:
http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Nick13-Dec-2013/16:40:11-8:00&archiveflag=new
One link included in the topic above is the article by Ingo Hohmann about the TUI dialect, still one of the best articles about creating dialects. Mirrored here:
http://rebol2.blogspot.com/2012/01/tui-dialect-dialect-to-print-ascii.html
Some others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebol#Dialects
http://www.codeconscious.com/rebol/dialects.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20120510120959/http://www.rebolforces.com/zine/rzine-1-02.html#sect7.
http://hostilefork.com/2010/01/08/modest-proposal-for-code-golf-in-rebol/
posted by: Nick 24-Jan-2014/2:52:17-8:00
Links about 'parse:
http://business-programming.com/business_programming.html#section-17.7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebol#parse
http://www.rebol.com/docs/core23/rebolcore-15.html
http://www.rebol.com/r3/docs/concepts/parsing-summary.html
http://www.codeconscious.com/rebol/parse-tutorial.html
http://www.codeconscious.com/rebol/parse-tutorial-r3.html
http://hostilefork.com/2013/12/05/why-rebol-red-parse-cool/
http://www.red-lang.org/2013/11/041-introducing-parse.html
http://rebol-land.blogspot.com/2013/03/rebols-answer-to-regex-parse-and-rebol.html
http://recoding.blogspot.com/2013/02/looking-to-learn-something-new-try-rebol.html
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/REBOL_Programming/Language_Features/Parse/Parse_expressions
http://www.rebol.net/wiki/Parse_Project
posted by: Nick 24-Jan-2014/3:11:16-8:00
There are often questions about the differences between VID, R3-GUI, RebGUI, View, etc. This topic should help provide a basic overview:
http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Patick21-Nov-2013/17:51:10-8:00&archiveflag=new
posted by: Nick 28-Jan-2014/7:52:21-8:00
Some more info about the View/VID/GUI/R2vsR3 topic is available at http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Sam28-Jan-2014/2:10:58-8:00&archiveflag=new
posted by: Nick 28-Jan-2014/9:42:18-8:00
Implementing Multi-User Data Management Applications with Rebol:
http://re-bol.com/rebol-multi-client-databases.html
posted by: Nick 30-May-2014/18:15:25-7:00
when I click on http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Patick21-Nov-2013/17:51:10-8:00&archiveflag=new
I get this error message:-
** Script Error: current-topic has no value ** Where: rejoin ** Near: join current-topic/3 current-topic/4 "&archiveflag=" archiveflag
when I click on http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Sam28-Jan-2014/2:10:58-8:00&archiveflag=new
I get this
** Script Error: current-topic has no value ** Where: rejoin ** Near: join current-topic/3 current-topic/4 "&archiveflag=" archiveflag
posted by: link does not work 9-Sep-2014/22:40:14-7:00
Unlike the made promise that a permalink would be valid even after a thread would be archived, it is not.
The archiveflag changed from new to archived so the new permalinks should be
http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Patick21-Nov-2013/17:51:10-8:00&archiveflag=archive
and
http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Sam28-Jan-2014/2:10:58-8:00&archiveflag=archive
posted by: Arnold 1-Oct-2014/7:42:28-7:00
Red bindings by Kaj, download script location http://red.esperconsultancy.nl/Red-test/dir?ci=tip
posted by: Arnold 6-Mar-2015/15:25:50-8:00
Create Mobile and Web Based Client-Server Apps with jsLinb/Sigma Visual IDE and Rebol:
http://re-bol.com/jslinb
posted by: Nick 12-Sep-2015/8:24:27-7:00
This is currently my go-to tutorial to get people started with Rebol:
http://re-bol.com/rebol_quick_start.html
posted by: Nick 14-Sep-2015/15:24:37-7:00
I removed the link for http://re-bol.com/starting_computer_programming_with_rebol.html on the front page of the forum, but it will remain available.
posted by: Nick 14-Sep-2015/17:21:02-7:00
The link for http://re-bol.com/rebol_for_programmers.html has also been removed from the front page of the forum, but it will remain available at that URL.
The material at http://re-bol.com/rebol_quick_start_part2.html replaces it.
posted by: Nick 14-Sep-2015/22:02:55-7:00
http://re-bol.com/short_rebol_examples.r
posted by: Nick 1-Oct-2015/1:00-7:00
This an old link, but collected here, for reference. A tutorial about using REBOL with the Etsy API: http://re-bol.com/etsy_api_tutorial.html
posted by: Nick 28-Nov-2015/16:58:18-8:00
I added screenshots of the http://re-bol.com/short_rebol_examples.r
http://re-bol.com/short_rebol_examples/
The older video run through is also available at:
https://youtu.be/lR5Fzv6DP0I
posted by: Nick 27-Dec-2015/8:43:06-8:00
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