FireFly Visual Designer for FreeBASIC (Updated March 8, 2016)

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 17, 2010 23:53

Thanks Rens,

I am still trying to find all of those little things that do not convert one-to-one from that other BASIC language that I spit out code generation for. If you notice any other errors like that then please let me know and I'll fix them up.

I'll create a new download and date it for today. It will be on the site in a few minutes.

...and I also have uploaded a .rar download for the latest Windows compiler version. That should make it even more convenient for users to get started in FB/FF3/Win32 programming.

Rens · Post by **Rens** » Jun 18, 2010 0:11

Removed by me

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 18, 2010 0:45

Thanks Rens,

I imagine that there are many places where I should have used syntax like HANDLE, HINSTANCE, HWND, etc... The other BASIC does not use this kind of stronger typing so I am slowly making the changes as I find them. As you can imagine, there are hundreds and hundreds of lines of source to scour through.

I just uploaded a new version of FF3 (July 17, 2010). I tested the backbitmap functionality and it appears to work okay now.

I intend to use the FB version of FF3 to build my next big application so I expect that I will find many new areas for improvement. ;-)

Post by **v1ctor** » Jun 18, 2010 16:40

Wow, this is cool. That's something that was always missing in FB, a visual gui editor (of course most wanted a OSS one and multiplatform, that's probably the reason there was never one).

Any reason to not have a commercial version yet? Beta stage?

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 18, 2010 21:15

Thanks V1ctor - your kind words are appreciated.

As impressive as FF3 may be it doesn't match the amazing job that you and the gang of FB developers have done.

This is the "commercial" version. It is essentially 90% of my commercial product (from a different BASIC language) with the code generation modified to produce FB code. I have no intention of selling this product to members of the FB community. Kind of my little gift (as small as it may be) to help stimulate more interest in this language. I am really enjoying programming in FB.

I won't be open sourcing this software but use of the program is free... and that's not a bad deal. :-)

relsoft · Post by **relsoft** » Jun 21, 2010 5:45

All I can say is WOW!

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 21, 2010 22:11

Thanks relsoft! :-)

EDIT: June 21, 2010 - First post in this thread updated. Corrected all syntax problems from converting the FireFly Functions Library from the other BASIC's syntax to FreeBASIC syntax.

John Spikowski · Post by **John Spikowski** » Jun 22, 2010 4:38

Request:

Please send Paul screen shots of your FreeBASIC/FF3 projects so we can get a feel for what can be done.

Thanks again Paul for all your efforts to help the FreeBASIC project get GUI legs.

Galeon · Post by **Galeon** » Jun 22, 2010 11:54

Does FireFly supports plugins? I am planning to write a plugin for it.

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 22, 2010 13:39

Sorry - no plugins at this point, although it may be possible to automate some of your tasks via the "User Tools" under the "Tools" menu.

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 22, 2010 13:50

This 10 minute video may be of benefit to some new users:
http://www.planetsquires.com/public_vid ... eFly3.html

John Spikowski · Post by **John Spikowski** » Jun 23, 2010 4:07

Nice job on the video. Good to hear the author's voice.

Is there any plans to port any of Jose Roca's code to FreeBASIC?

D.J.Peters · Post by **D.J.Peters** » Jun 24, 2010 8:18

Hello Paul
current version works great

I wonder me why you use HWND, UINTEGER and DWORD for the same thing
(of course this will produce many warnings)

Would be cool if you can open/view any path string as file (right mouse click)
e.g. #include "GL/gl.bi"

Good job so far.

Joshy

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 24, 2010 11:09

D.J.Peters wrote:I wonder me why you use HWND, UINTEGER and DWORD for the same thing
(of course this will produce many warnings)

Hi Joshy - yes, that is from the translation of my template that I use for that other BASIC language. That language uses DWord for handles rather than the stricter syntax of HWND, HINSTANCE, HANDLE, etc... I have been gradually changing the code generation to use the FB syntax and I have caught many of these cases thereby reducing the number of compiler warnings by at least 80%. Still some work to do in this area but it is getting better every day.

Would be cool if you can open/view any path string as file (right mouse click)
e.g. #include "GL/gl.bi"

that has been requested many times over the last couple of years and the reason that I haven't done it is that once a file gets loaded into the IDE then it becomes a part of the Project (in this case, a Module). However, because you are referencing it as an #include then it should not be part of the Project as a Module. The way I could handle is to load the file and somehow mark it as "discardable" so that it is not saved as part of the Project. I'll have to think about this one.

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Jun 24, 2010 11:10

D.J.Peters wrote:Hello Paul
current version works great
......
Good job so far.

Joshy

Thanks!

:-)