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Text File | 2001-05-31 | 20.8 KB | 581 lines

Liberty BASIC v2.02 Release Notes - May 2, 2001 In this file you will find: - Information about changing the icon for runtime applications - A list of new features and bug fixes Changing the icon for runtime applications ========================================== You can change the icon for the runtime engine. Liberty BASIC provides a tool that lets you do this. To create an icon you can use the icon editor built into Liberty BASIC, or you can use a 16-color icon created from some other tool. Let's walk through this. Let's say I've made a copy of the runtime engine called freeform.exe. To install an icon which I've already created, I would: - Start Liberty BASIC if needed - Click on the Setup menu and choose Icon Editor - Now I'll click on the File menu in the Icon Editor and open my icon file, named freeform.ico - To install the icon in the freeform.exe file, I will click on File and then choose Write Icon To Module - Now I'll find the freeform.exe file in the file dialog that appears, select it, and click on Ok - To install the icon in the vwicons.dll file, I will click on File and then choose Write Icon To Module - Now I'll find the vwicons.dll file in the file dialog that appears, select it, and click on Ok - A dialog box will appear. So I would click to select the item 10 DEFAULT and then click on Ok. That's it! I will need to include a copy of the vwicons.dll file that I just modified along with the freeform.exe file. New Features for Liberty BASIC v2.02 ==================================== - The following example programs have been updated because they did not work properly with this latest version of Liberty BASIC. Thanks for Cameron Arnott for pointing these out! colorex.bas, graphics.bas, rolodex1.bas, ttt.bas - The sprites help file was updated to include a section describing each sprite related command. Thanks to Alyce Watson for this new help file! - Added an exclamation point button to the IDE toolbar next to the question mark button (help). This button opens the release notes (this document). - Fixed! When running a TKN file, functions would often fail with an index out of bounds error when returning from calls to other functions. This bug was not in effect when running BAS programs in the editor. - Fixed! Liberty BASIC was opening a file named 'go' every time it started up. This was preventing it from running from a CDROM drive or on a network where read-only permissions were in effect. - Changed the name of the vwfloat.dll to vwfloat2.dll so that it doesn't conflict with the floating point library of the same name used by Liberty BASIC v1.x. This was causing trouble for users who were trying to use both on the same machine. - Fixed a problem where the floating point library wasn't being released when Liberty BASIC exits. - Fixed a bug in the grabbing of a sprite background. When the image needed to be stretched to fit, the height of the bitmap was mistakingly stretched to be its width. - New! Added READ, DATA, and RESTORE! DATA is local to the sub or function it is defined in. - Fixed! Sometimes an array inside of a function or sub was not always the same array as named outside of a function or sub. This would cause index out of bounds errors, as well as some more subtle bugs. - Extended the SORT command so that you can reverse the order of the sort by reversing the order of the range of rows to sort. 'sort from row 1 to 50 sort array$(), 1, 50 'sort reversed from row 1 to 50 sort array$(), 50, 1 - Added information about READ, DATA, and RESTORE to the help files, reorganized the Command Reference to make it easier to find stuff, and corrected some mistakes. New Features for Liberty BASIC v2.01 ==================================== - Added VWICONS.DLL to the Liberty BASIC distribution. This library doesn't seem to be required for Win95 and Win98, but is needed for Windows NT (and probably Windows 2000). - Added the above DLL to the distribution list in the runtime engine documentation in the helpfile. New Features for Liberty BASIC v2.0 ==================================== - Added the ability to set command line arguments for a TKN file when you execute it with a run statement, like so: run "myprog.tkn these words in CommandLine$ of myprog.tkn" - Added a STRINGWIDTH? command to the graphics windows. This lets you get the width in pixels of a string, based on the current font of the graphicbox or graphic window. open "my stringwidth" for graphics as #g name$ = "Carl Gundel" print #g, "stringwidth? names$ width" print width - Using the PRINTERDIALOG command will afford the user the opportunity for pick a different printer for the next run of printing, but then the printer will revert to the default printer unless the PRINTERDIALOG command is used again. When the user chooses a printer the variables PrinterName$, PrintCollate and PrintCopies are set with appropriate values. - Added RGB color support to the BACKCOLOR and FILL graphics commands. For example, now you can do this: print #handle.ext, "fill 255 100 100" - Added support for popup style windows and dialog boxes using the window_popup and dialog_popup types, for example: open "title not displayed" for window_popup as #winpop There is no close button or system menu for this kind of window, but you can close it using Alt-F4. - Added a wait statement. Use this anywhere you want to stop and wait for user interaction, instead of using input and a dummy variable name. - Changed the default font to Ms Sans Serif 8 point. This is the same font most Windows applications use. The editor, debugger and main window still use the font specified under Setup/Editor Font. - Established the new data return mechanism for widgets in addition to sprites. You can still use the old form. Old form: print #handle.ext, "command"; input #handle.ext, resultVar New form: print #handle.ext, "command resultVar"; - Added syntax coloring to the LB editor! - Groupboxes now accept handle extensions, so now you can get a Windows handle for any groupbox. groupbox #handle.ext, "My groupbox", 10, 10, 200, 100 - Added graphical sprites to Liberty BASIC! A big thank you goes out to Alyce Watson for all her help getting this to work! The sprite functionality be used with a graphics window or a graphicbox. Only one window at a time can have sprites. No special setup is required. Just open a window and start adding and using sprites. Here is a simple example: '-- load a sprite image and background loadbmp "smiley", "smiley.bmp" loadbmp "landscape", "bg1.bmp" '-- open a window with a graphicbox WindowHeight = 300 WindowWidth = 400 open "sprite test" for window_nf as #w graphicbox #w.g, 0, 0, 400, 300 '-- add a background and sprite to the window print #w.g, "background landscape"; print #w.g, "addsprite smiley smiley"; '-- animate the sprite for x = 1 to 100 step 4 print #w.g, "spritexy smiley "; x; " "; x print #w.g, "drawsprites"; next x wait Each sprite can have one or more images. These can be controlled explicitly or a sprite can be made to cycle it's images in an automatic fashion. A sprite's set of images can also be swapped on the fly with another set. Each sprite has several useful properties like name, position, visibility, scale, orientation, and motion. A form of collision detection lets your program ask for the names of sprites which touch any sprite. The currently supported commands are (please make suggestions!): background imagename - Use the image specified as a background. addsprite spritename imagename(s) - Add a sprite using images. Repeating this later replaces the images with a new set and sets the first images to be the current one. Replacing the images does not alter the position, visibility or other properties of the sprite with this name. drawsprites - Update the visual display spriteimage spritename - Make the image named spritename the current image. spritexy spritename x y - Position a sprite at x, y spritexy? spritename - Gets the x and y position of the sprite Acceptable usage: print #handle.ext, "spritexy? spritename" input #handle.ext, x, y or print #handle.ext, "spritexy? spritename x y" spritescale spritename percent - Set the size scale of a sprite spriteorient spritename normal|flip|mirror|rotate180 - Set the visual orientation of a sprite spritevisible off|on - Hide or show a sprite spritemovexy spritename x y | Move a sprite x, y pixels each time it is drawn cyclesprite spritename frameCount - Each time a sprite is drawn use frameCount to make another image the selected frame. A value of 1 cycles through each image in turn (-1 backwards) spritecollide spritename - Gets a string with names of sprites that overlap the current frame of the sprite named. Each sprite name returned has a space between it. Acceptable usage: print #handle.ext, "spritecollide spritename" input #handle.ext, list$ or input #handle.ext, "spritecollide spritename list$" There are several included sprite programs. There are sprite images in the sprites subdirectory and there are a couple of blank sprites you can use to create your own sprites using Paintbrush. - Added a TIMER statement. This permits the creation of one operating system timer per program. This timer provides a means to execute code at a branch label every so many milliseconds. Branching will wait until an WAIT, INPUT or SCAN statement is encountered. Acceptable usage: timer 100, [tenthSec] 'GOTO [label] every 100 ms (milliseconds) timer 1000, [oneSec] 'change to 1000 milliseconds and [second] timer 0 'turn off the timer See the clock2.bas program for an example of TIMER. - Added a SELECT command to the text window and texteditor control which will position the cursor at column and row. print #handle.ext, "!select column row"; - Added a Printer Font menu item to the Setup menu so the user can have separate editing and printing fonts. NOTE: There is a problem with bitmapped fonts. They get translated directly into the resolution of the printer, which isn't pretty. I'll have to figure out how to fix this, but for now use TrueType fonts like Courier New. - Added min() and max() functions which return the smaller or larger of two values respectively. - Enhanced the LB editor so that the blinking cursor follows the editor's view whenever you page up or down. - Changed the up and down arrow scrolling so that when you reach the top or bottom of the view it scrolls a single line at a time, instead of scrolling an amount proportional to the editor view. - Changed shift-scrolling, so that when pushing shift and up or down arrow and the top or bottom of the view is reached it will scroll and let you to continue selecting. - Added a File/Insert File... menu item so that a file can be inserted into the file being currently edited at the current cursor position. - Added the ability define subroutines using the SUB statement. This is similar to defining functions, but no value is returned. sub subname var1, var2$ 'some code here end sub To call a subroutine, the CALL statement is used. call subname expr1, expr2$ See the console3.bas and fform201.bas programs for examples. - Added the ability to set and read the text field part of a combobox. See combo.bas for an example. - A new option in the preferences panel lets you set a file that will always be loaded when Liberty BASIC is launched. - Added a revamped debug window. - Enhanced font specification so that fonts can support underscore, and strikeout. for example: print #handle, "font courier_new 10 underscore strikeout" - Enhanced font point size specification. Now if you specify only one size value it will use this to set the actual point size of the font. The goal of this is to retain backwards compatibility with LB v1.x. for example to create a 10pt font: print #handle, "font times_new_roman 10" the old way still ok (it doesn't really create a 10pt font): print #handle, "font times_new_roman 0 10" - Added a FONTDIALOG command. To use it, pass in a font specification string and give it a string variable name to return the user's newly specified font specification. If the user cancels the dialog box the returned value is an empty string. like so: facename$ = "courier_new" pointsize$ = "10" modifiers$ = "bold italic" fontdialog facename$+" "+pointsize$+" "+modifiers$, newFontSpec$ print newFontSpec$ Of course the following also works: fontdialog "courier_new 10 bold italic", newFontSpec$ - Added a set command to the graphics window and graphicbox. It draws a single spot using the current pen. If you don't specify a location it will draw in the current spot. If you do specify a location is will draw the spot there. print #draw, "set" or using the following should improve the performance of your programs over using place and go. print #draw, "set 100 100" - Added a toolbar with buttons to the Liberty BASIC editor - Improved the performance of the CALLDLL statement. Twice as fast. - Added two new forms of the time$() function. time$ = time$() 'this is same old form, and does the same thing seconds = time$("seconds") 'returns seconds since midnight msecs = time$("milliseconds") 'returns milliseconds since midnight - Added new forms of the date$() function print date$() ' Nov 30, 1999 print date$("mm/dd/yyyy") ' 11/30/1999 print date$("mm/dd/yy") ' 11/30/99 print date$("yyyy/mm/dd") ' 1999/11/30 for sorting print date$("days") ' 36127 days since Jan 1, 1900 - Added a dechex$() function that produces a hexadecimal representation of a decimal value. This is the opposite of the hexdec() function. hexString$ = dechex$(255) 'produces "FF" - Added recent files to the LB editor file menu. - New! Added the ability to use expressions when specifying controls. - Type checking. The compiler now knows when to expect a parameter or value to be a string or a numeric value. For example: a = "hey there" 'this is acceptable in Liberty BASIC v1.x a$ = "hey there" 'string variable names must now end with $ - Color control (see colorex.bas). Two variables, ForegroundColor$ and BackgroundColor$ let you control color for windows of type window, and window_nf. Dialog boxes now automatically have a gray background. - Popupmenu command. This is just like the menu statement, but it pops up a menu anywhere you like. - User functions with local variables and branch labels. The way it is currently implemented all arrays and device handles (for files and windows) are globals. Here is an example function definition. print amPmTime$(time$()) function amPmTime$(time$) colonIndex = instr(time$, ":") hours = val(left$(time$, colonIndex - 1)) amOrPm$ = " AM" if hours > 12 then hours = hours - 12 amOrPm$ = " PM" else if hours = 0 then hours = 12 end if amPmTime$ = str$(hours) + mid$(time$, colonIndex) + amOrPm$ end function Notice that to return a value, you must set the variable with the same name as the function. In the above case, this is amPmTime$. Bug fixes for Liberty BASIC v2.0 ================================= - Added code to fix a compiler error that said 'read beyond end of stream', where it should say 'syntax error'. - Added a mechanism for compile-time type checking of array indexing arguments so that you get a 'type mismatch' error at compile time instead of a weird error at runtime. - Changed dialog boxes so that they will position themselves relative to the mouse when opened, instead of being positioned at the upper left of the display screen. The technique is the same as for non-dialog windows. - Fixed the compiler so that it halts compiling with a syntax error if a line of code begins or ends with a colon character. - Modified the parser so that for commands which specify an array you can now include the closing brace. This doesn't change any functionality, but it meant to make the code more readable. This includes the commands combobox, listbox, sort, and files. The old syntax is also still supported. Example. Instead of: combobox #main.cb, myArray$(, [handler], x, y, wide, high you can do this: combobox #main.cb, myArray$(), [handler], x, y, wide, high - Fixed the parser so that remarked code that starts with an apostrophe ignore anything after them (as they should). - Set a default mainwin size of 64 columns and 24 lines. This takes effect when there is no lbasic.ini file. - Fixed a bug in the PROMPT and CONFIRM commands where they would always assign a string value to the variable specified in the command, even if the variable had a numeric name (no $). The following now work correctly: prompt "How many years old are you!"; years print "You must be at least "; years * 12; " months old!" and... 'yesDelete will be 1 for true, and 0 for false confirm "Go ahead and delete customer?"; yesDelete if yesDelete then call deleteCustomerId custId - Changed the BEEP command to play the default system sound synchronously. - Changed the RUN statement (and some other stuff) so that when you run a TKN file and it ends, control will return to the calling program. - Fixed! Each time Liberty BASIC was started it would flip the order of the recent files because it was writing out the opposite order it was reading them in. - Added code which automatically gives files a .BAS extension when you use Save As... and do not specify an extension. - Fixed! When displaying text in a graphics window semicolons can now be included in the text. - The font command was not being handled by windows and dialogs. You can now do something like this to set the font for all the controls in a window: 'define some controls and open a window or dialog and then... print #winhandle, "font courier_new 10" - Rehashed the way that floating point values are displayed because many values were losing precision in their printed rendering. - Made the following window type specifiers order insensitive so that you can reverse the modifiers: graphics_nsb_nf = graphics_nf_nsb graphics_nsb_fs = graphics_fs_nsb text_nsb_ins = text_ins_nsb text_fs_nsb = text_nsb_fs dialog_nf_fs = dialog_fs_nf dialog_modal_nf = dialog_nf_modal - Fixed a problem with the ^ operator, which wasn't permitting a value of zero or less to be raised to a power. - Fixed: OPEN "comx:????" for random as #handle The letters com no longer have to be in uppercase. Previously Liberty BASIC complained that the filename was too long if com wasn't COM. - The FILEDIALOG command will now accept string expressions instead of only string variable for its title and pathname parameters. - Fixed the printing code so that program listings would correctly wrap when lines are too long for the page width. - Now when a command sent to a GUI control is not understood, Liberty BASIC will stop and provide a description of the problem. This will make it easier to find certain subtle coding mistakes. - Controls will now be added in the order they are listed before a window is opened. Previously they were added in subgroups which made tabbing order difficult to work with. - cleaned up casting of integer values when floats have no fractional part. This affected code in many places. - fixed! Trying to delete the currently unflushed graphics segment resulted in a delete metafile error. Now it will delete the segment. - fixed! Integers were being cast as floats during variable assignment in some cases - The random number generator for rnd() has been improved. Now it seems much more random. - fixed! type checking was added to array assignments at compile time - New better syntax checking and error reporting. Much less likely to see errors like: - the collection is empty - attempted to access an absent element - Fonts now include support for italic, bold and underscore. See fontpowr.bas for an example.