What types of Projects are needed to help boost Free BASIC's

JQB45 · Post by **JQB45** » Oct 05, 2005 19:07

What types of Projects are needed to help boost Free BASIC's popularity?

I was thinking of the following

DOS Based IDE or perhaps Windows Console Based Text IDE
Ability to connect to ODBC/OLEDB datasources and execute queries
(maybe this is already being worked on)

Any ideas?
-Jeff

jofers · Post by **jofers** » Oct 05, 2005 19:24

Easily, better documentation. That means scrapping the wiki present wiki system, and replacing it with a faster-more user-friendly interface (and more customizability). It also means writing better documents for the existing wiki. Many articles are fairly amateurish, because the writers overlooked some functionality, wrote it hurridly, or did not have a full understanding of the commands.

The documentation is FB's #1 impediment to easier adaptation. You can register at the wiki itself, and edit any article.

Xerol · Post by **Xerol** » Oct 05, 2005 19:29

This would probably be a huge amount of work, but if FBIde had a "help pane" like in Visual Studio, which goes online and retrieves data from the wiki, it would be nice. One possible (and not TOO difficult) way to do it would just to open an actual browser inside the program(in its own pane) which references a specially formatted version of the wiki. So you wouldn't have to worry about including up-to-date documentation with the IDE, but you could still have the context-sensitive help like QB did (i.e. if you've got the cursor over a keyword and hit F1 it'll bring up the help pane with that page loaded). Just a thought.

Oz · Post by Oz » Oct 05, 2005 19:42

i'd be up into helping design a wiki, if needed, and i'd definately helpout with the wiki (i can barely firgure any of it out)

oz~

MystikShadows · Post by **MystikShadows** » Oct 05, 2005 20:28

I think it depends on who you're aiming for.

Most QB users would love a DOS based IDE especially if it can be made as integrated as QB or VB-DOS IDEs are.

Most Windows Programmers in other languages might like it if it was more of a visual based IDE like Visual Studio for example. Or at the very least if it allowed to visually design GUIs...

Delphi programmers and C++ programmers might be interested in FB once Classes are implemented and a few projects are made with them.

Really depends on the background and what is being aimed for. but I think all these possibilities could be created without changing the basic goal of FB which is to be QB's reincarnation to the 32 bit world.

JQB45 · Post by **JQB45** » Oct 05, 2005 20:43

Thanks for all your replies.

I started playing around with the windows version today.

made a few console mode gizmos (hello world) so far.

still getting used to it all again.

I'm currently using context (www.context.cx) text editor
for my ide. Seems to work well.

in console mode (screen 0) how can I print text to the 25th line on the screen?

-Jeff

MystikShadows · Post by **MystikShadows** » Oct 05, 2005 20:57

Just like in QB

LOCATE 25, 10: PRINT "TEXT TO BE PRINTED ON LINE 25";

don't forget the ; at the end of the print statement :-)...or it will scroll

JQB45 · Post by **JQB45** » Oct 05, 2005 22:18

If you wish this to work...

Locate 25, 1
Print String$(80, "a");

you must first do one of two things.

Option #1: Set the Width of the screen

Width(80, 25)

or

Option #2:
Dim some_variable As Integer = Width()

and then this will work properly

Locate 25, 1
Print String$(80, "a");

Next Question is it possible to Set the intensity of the background so that colors 8-15 will display properly?

I used to do this is QB45 via Call Interupt
and I called the function HighColor()

-Jeff

JQB45 · Post by **JQB45** » Oct 05, 2005 23:09

Is there an equivalent to Option Explicit On from VB.NET in FreeBASIC ?

-Jeff

mjs · Post by **mjs** » Oct 05, 2005 23:50

Yes there is - it's called "OPTION EXPLICIT".

Regards,
Mark

yetifoot · Post by **yetifoot** » Oct 06, 2005 1:37

FBIde had a "help pane" like in Visual Studio, which goes online and retrieves data from the wiki

i really hate that whole thing with VS, i preferred it when you got an actual help file. being on 56k is a big factor, and id rather go to MSDN only when i really need to.

spiner · Post by **spiner** » Oct 06, 2005 7:56

Windows already has an IDE for FB (FBIde); why don't we think to an IDE for Linux or DOS that IMHO is one thing FB really miss?
Better if in text mode so it could be used also on low end or "historycal" machines.

Nodtveidt · Post by **Nodtveidt** » Oct 06, 2005 14:06

I wrote a very basic editor for FB-DOS a looooong time ago (probably back in March) but I never finished it nor released it. Perhaps I should get back to work on it...hrm...

spiner · Post by **spiner** » Oct 06, 2005 14:26

Nodtveidt wrote:I wrote a very basic editor for FB-DOS a looooong time ago (probably back in March) but I never finished it nor released it. Perhaps I should get back to work on it...hrm...

Do it! And if you want collaboration...share with us.

Chronos · Post by **Chronos** » Oct 06, 2005 15:09

spiner wrote:Windows already has an IDE for FB (FBIde); why don't we think to an IDE for Linux or DOS that IMHO is one thing FB really miss?
Better if in text mode so it could be used also on low end or "historycal" machines.

Or for people who would rather use Text Mode/DOS. (As it stands the only programs I make are text-mode--I don't know anything about GUI manipulation--that's why I used VB. :P

(DOS Apps have few to no dependencies, which make them ideal for limited-space portability. Now if said editor had code coloring, that would rock.)

What types of Projects are needed to help boost Free BASIC's

What types of Projects are needed to help boost Free BASIC's

Thanks

Ah I figured it out.

Nevermind I figured it out (blasted mispelled variables)