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

[Ray Johnson]

@LinuxBob,
I usually design my form by placing all the controls first. Then, finally, I draw all the frames.
If you draw frames early in the design process, I find that they often just 'get in the way'.

Some 'old' Visual Basic users expect that frames act as containers, where as they move the frame, all the controls 'inside' the frame are moved with it. This was just a VB invention. A frame is a separate control, just like a text box or a button. The difficulty/confusion from a Visual Designer point of view is that a frame is almost always around other controls, so when you click inside it, the Designer sometimes gets confused about which control you really intend.

As said, most of these issues are prevented by drawing your frames at the very last of your form design.

Kind regards

[Linuxbob]

Ray,

Thanks. I understand the difference between container frames and WinAPI frames (I'm an old C coder too.) I'm just getting the capabilities of the FF Visual Designer down.

[rko]

hi,
i am a beginner and i just love FireFly (latest version from its webpage 3.70) - what a great designer.
i have a problem compiling with the 64 bit compiler (works with 32bit). i make a new project with it form and nothing else. when compiling i get the following error:

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FreeBASIC Compiler - Version 1.02.0 (03-21-2015), built for win64 (64bit)
Copyright (C) 2004-2015 The FreeBASIC development team.
standalone
target:       win64, x86-64, 64bit
compiling:    CODEGEN_PROJECT1_MAIN.bas -o CODEGEN_PROJECT1_MAIN.c (main module)
CODEGEN_PROJECT1_MAIN.bas(29) error 4: Duplicated definition, ENM_PARAGRAPHEXPANDED in '#Define ENM_PARAGRAPHEXPANDED &H00000020'
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_UTILITY.inc(39) error 41: Variable not declared, GCL_HBRBACKGROUND in 'hBrush = Cast(HBRUSH, GetClassLong( hWndControl, GCL_HBRBACKGROUND))'
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_UTILITY.inc(288) error 41: Variable not declared, GWL_HWNDPARENT in 'hWndParent = Cast(HWND, GetWindowLong( hWndForm, GWL_HWNDPARENT ))'
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_UTILITY.inc(522) error 28: Expected pointer, before ')' in 'Function = Cast(Handle, tlv_item.iImage)'
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_FORM1_FORM.inc(194) error 17: Syntax error, found 'ENUMWINDOWSPROC' in 'EnumChildWindows hWndForm, Cast(ENUMWINDOWSPROC, @FLY_ResizeRuleInitEnum), 0'
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_FORM1_FORM.inc(194) warning 1(1): Passing scalar as pointer, at parameter 2 of ENUMCHILDWINDOWS()
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_FORM1_FORM.inc(196) error 17: Syntax error, found 'ENUMWINDOWSPROC' in 'EnumChildWindows hWndForm, Cast(ENUMWINDOWSPROC, @FLY_ResizeRuleEnum), 0'
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_FORM1_FORM.inc(196) warning 1(1): Passing scalar as pointer, at parameter 2 of ENUMCHILDWINDOWS()
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_FORM1_FORM.inc(277) warning 3(1): Passing different pointer types, at parameter 2 of ENUMCHILDWINDOWS()
C:\proggies\FireFlyFB\Projects\Project1\release\CODEGEN_PROJECT1_FORM1_FORM.inc(518) error 41: Variable not declared, GWL_WNDPROC in 'SetWindowLong hWndControl, GWL_WNDPROC, Cast(uInteger,FLY_ProcAddress)'
CODEGEN_PROJECT1_MAIN.bas(373) error 28: Expected pointer, before ')' in 'ff->OldProc = Cast(WNDPROC,SetWindowLong( hWndControl, GWL_WNDPROC, ByVal Cast(Integer, CodeProcedure) ))'

any pointer to get it to compile?
thanks


sorry for wrong posting - i wanted it with the firefly project

[PaulSquires]

Hi, FireFly has not been updated yet to work with the Win64 includes. I believe that dkl only merged the 64 bit includes a couple of days ago.

[PaulSquires]

Hi, where can I download the latest FB 64 bit version?????

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FreeBASIC Compiler - Version 1.02.0 (03-21-2015), built for win64 (64bit)
Copyright (C) 2004-2015 The FreeBASIC development team.

[rko]

hi,

you can download it at http://users.freebasic-portal.de/stw/builds/

[St_W]

Please note that these are nightly builds, so they might be unstable (although usually they aren't). For space reasons most of the header files are not included - they have to be downloaded separately (freebasic_additional_headers.zip or from the fbc git repo). Stable 64-bit builds are available at the usual download page http://freebasic.net/get (they do not contain the current win64 headers, these have to be downloaded/updated manually too).

[rko]

yes - sorry for this mistake, i took the the nightly and the headers from git

[PaulSquires]

Hi Everyone,

I have updated the first post of this thread with the latest version of the FireFly program. This is my first attempt at supporting the FBC Windows 64-bit compiler. Please report any errors that you find. There have a lot of changes with the various Windows include files so I want to make sure that FireFly's code generation is error free with these includes.

[Jonge]

Thanks for keeping this project up to date!

Found a small bug, projects with a name with more then one word wont compile:

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"C:\Dev\FreeBASIC-1.01.0-win32\fbc.exe" -x "Test Test.exe" CODEGEN_TESTTEST_MAIN.bas  -v  CODEGEN_TESTTEST_RESOURCE.rc > _Test Test_compilelog.txt 2>&1

The compilelog file name also needs a couple of " " =)

[PaulSquires]

Hi Jonge,

Thanks for the report. I am not sure why the compile log file is not removing the spaces for you. I just created a test project and here is the contents of the compile batch file:

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"E:\FB\FreeBASIC-1.01.0-win32\fbc.exe" -x "Project1 with a Space.exe" CODEGEN_PROJECT1WITHASPACE_MAIN.bas  -v  CODEGEN_PROJECT1WITHASPACE_RESOURCE.rc > _project1withaspace_compilelog.txt 2>&1

[Jonge]

Sorry, I think I maybe downloaded your release a bit to early on sunday, because I got FireFly_FB_371.rar instead of the new FireFly_FB_372.rar.

[Jonge]

How I can I remove a Statusbar(After using the Statusbar editor) after adding it to a form?

This also creates a compile error: Use the statusbar editor and add two panels, then remove the two panels and then compile

[PaulSquires]

Right-click on the Form that the StatusBar is on. In that popup menu should be an option to remove the StatusBar.
The compiling error after removing all Panels is a bug that I will fix. Thanks!

[Drago]

Dear Paul,

i got some errors on compiling old Projects:

FreeBASIC Compiler - Version 1.02.0 (03-28-2015), built for win32 (32bit)
Copyright (C) 2004-2015 The FreeBASIC development team.
standalone
target: win32, 486, 32bit
compiling: CODEGEN_CW_EBIL_MAIN.bas -o CODEGEN_CW_EBIL_MAIN.asm (main module)
C:\FreeBasic\FireFly\Projects\CW_E\release\CODEGEN_CW_EBIL_UTILITY.inc(493) error 14: Expected identifier, found 'OFNA' in 'Dim Ofn As OFNA'
C:\FreeBasic\FireFly\Projects\CW_E\release\CODEGEN_CW_EBIL_UTILITY.inc(513) error 264: Symbol not a CLASS, ENUM, TYPE or UNION type, before '.' in 'ofn.lStructSize = Sizeof(OFNA)'
...

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FF_OpenFileDialog( HWND_FRMMAND, "CW-Mandant auswählen", mMandant, mBaseDir, "CW-Datei (*.ac|*.ac|Alle Dateien (*.*|*.*", "*.ac", 0, 0)

Grüße
Rainer