Liberty BASIC for OS/2

Shoptalk Systems Phone: 508-872-5315 WWW: http://world.std.com/~carlg/basic.html FTP: ftp://ftp.std.com/consultants/liberty.basic ================================================================= Liberty BASIC/2 beta version 0.91 release notes: ================================================================= Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 Shoptalk Systems All Rights Reserved July 1996 Liberty BASIC was originally released for the MS Windows platform almost four years ago as shareware. This is the _tenth_ beta release of a port from Windows to OS/2 platform. Aside from any bugs that may exist in this beta version, this release is functionally very close to the Windows version of Liberty BASIC. Here are a few things that are NOT supported in this release: - The spreadsheet widget - The new *.TKN format isn't here yet, but the old one still works :-) - The PLAYWAVE command only rings the system bell in this release - The Setup menu for the editor is not yet implemented LOOKING FOR BETA TESTERS! If you want to participate in our beta testing program, send email to Carl Gundel expressing your interest: carlg@world.std.com Please let us know if you are having any trouble running Liberty BASIC with IBM's FixPak 17 installed! New for Liberty BASIC/2 v0.91, July 1996 - Startup code has been rehashed to remedy crashing on startup that some were experiencing. - Fixed input$(1). It caused LB to freeze, and there were other things wrong with it too. - Added the file DDE4.MSG to the distribution set. The lack of this file in previous releases caused ERROR.LOG crash info to be missing (making it more difficult to diagnose any memory protection faults). - The following things were broken by our new variable lookup/indexing method (introduced in v0.9) and are now FIXED. - The GET command ; - Reading the mouse in a graphics window New for Liberty BASIC/2 v0.9 - Fixed a bug in the INPUT$() function (the function just didn't work). - Fixed a bug where the texteditor control was not sizing properly when used in a window of type dialog. - Converted to bitwise AND and OR operators. Negative numbers are converted to positive before operating on. OS/2 being a 32-bit operating system, the smallest converted negative number is converted into a 32-bit figure like so: (2^32) - n This can be then converted into a 16-bit number if desired by ANDing it with 65535 (LB for Win v1.3 uses 16-bit values when a value can be represented as one). - Added the RMDIR() function. Pass a single parameter consisting of a complete directory path to remove. Removes only the last subdirectory in the specified path. Returns zero if successful, and an OS error code if unsuccessful. - Added the MKDIR() function. Pass a single parameter consisting of a complete directory path to create. Cannot create more than one subdirectory at a time. Returns zero if successful, and an OS error code if unsuccessful. - Changed to an indexed variable lookup scheme instead of a hashed one. This yields at least a 25% speed improvement in program execution. - Added support for the REDIM statement for redimensioning arrays - The UpperLeftX and UpperLeftY variables are now relative to the upper-left corner of the display to make this version of LB/2 more compatible with the Windows version. - Added support for the DisplayWidth and DisplayHeight variables. Try: print DisplayWidth; " by "; DisplayHeight; " pixels" - Added the DefaultDir$ variable (but changing its contents doesn't actually change the current directory, yet). - The File...Save menu item would always ask for a filename (as if Save As... was selected) when working on a *new* file (one that was not loaded from disk) - When LPRINTing, Liberty BASIC was trying to print each job twice, rather than once. Sometimes this would really muck things up. New for Liberty BASIC v0.8a This is a bug-fix release of v0.8. Several important problems were fixed including: - The delsegment command for graphics windows was not working correctly - Pop-up and pull-down Edit menus for texteditor controls didn't work correctly - The box and boxfilled commands drew boxes slightly taller than they should have - The circlefilled command didn't fill completely or with the correct color - Trying to load a bitmap that doesn't exists returned an OS Error and created an empty file with an unclosed handle instead of providing a user-friendly error message. New for Liberty BASIC v0.8 (Oct 10, 1995) - Ported over to a new compiler - Added user-definable button sizes - Fixed bug with Save and Save As... menu items in the source editor - Added support for TEXTEDITOR command - Added scrollbars to debugger - Enhanced debugger to permit changing of walk or run modes while running code. - Fixed debugger so that it doesn't always rise to top during debugging - Added support for LINE INPUT - Added KILL command for deleting files - Added NAME command for renaming files - Added RUN command. At this time only works with *.TKN files and OS/2 EXEs (sort of) - Added the upper$( ) and lower$( ) functions for converting strings all uppercase and all lowercase - Added support for the modal dialog box types dialog_modal and dialog_nf_modal - Added the setfocus command to the following controls: Listbox, combobox, textbox, checkbox, and radiobutton - Added the FILES command, for extracting file & directory information - and other hard to describe details.... Registration for this beta version is purely voluntary; no one will be obligated to register any version of Liberty BASIC for OS/2 version numbered less than 1.0. We hope you like what you see here and that you are willing to help speed development by sending us your monetary support. Those who do register will receive v1.0 for FREE when it is released. See the file REGISTER.TXT for more details. Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.7 release notes: Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Shoptalk Systems All Rights Reserved Feb 2, 1995 What's New? - A bug was fixed that caused OS/2 Warp to crash when loading Liberty BASIC. - A bug was fixed that sometimes caused the WorkPlace Shell to hang when trying to open windows that contained controls. - A sample Liberty BASIC program called Freeform has been included. This program lets you graphically design your own windows, and it writes the code for you! Because this is a Liberty BASIC for Windows program with virtually no code changes for this platform, it looks a little messy, but it works! The filename is FFEXP.BAS. It is amost 60K of source code, so make a *.TKN file out of it and run it like that so that you don't have to wait for the compile! - A bug was fixed that caused a LB program execution to halt when trying to print to a statictext control. - Font selection is now possible in a graphics window. The command is: print #handle, "font fontname width height" Remove spaces from the font name, and if you are using a fixed width font like System Monospaced, the exact font width and height must be specified. - The text window type has been added. This allows you to open a window and print text into it for display, editing, cutting and pasting, etc. The supported text window types are: text text window with scroll bars text_fs text window full screen size with scroll bars text_nsb text window without scroll bars text_fs_nsb text window full screen size without scroll bars - Fixed the boxfilled graphics command so that it actually produces a filled box. Use forecolor to set the border and backcolor to set the filled interior. - Set up the standard window backdrop to be an OS/2-ish gray instead of white. - Fixed the size graphics command to make it more compatible with the Windows version of Liberty BASIC. - Added a Drives$ variable that contains a list of valid drive letters. 'try this code print Drives$ Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.6 release notes: Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 Shoptalk Systems All Rights Reserved Aug 17, 1994 & Nov 1994 What's New? - 32 bits! It has been a few months since our last release. We've been busy. This new version is the first 32-bit version of Liberty BASIC! The older versions were 16-bit only! - This new version is almost 40% smaller and is also 40% faster than verion 0.5! - Bitmapped buttons are supported now. See the DRAW1.BAS program for an example. - This is the first OS/2 version we are collecting registrations for! Registration for this beta version is purely voluntary; no one will be obligated to register any version of Liberty BASIC for OS/2 version numbered less than 1.0. We hope you like what you see here and that you are willing to help speed development by sending us your monetary support. See the file REGISTER.TXT for more details. - For v0.6a only: A new item added to the Source menu called 'Go To Branch Label' lets you see an ordered list of all branch points. By double-clicking on one, you will be instantly transported to that part of your program, ready to edit! Bug fixes: - Array bounds checking is now perform at runtime, instead of at compile-time. Message for the error is also improved. - Sometimes a red box containing a 'PM out of resources' error message. This has been largely eliminated. - Some bugs in the editor have been repaired, in particular the bug involving the File/New menu item. - You can now use LPRINT. The output is buffered, so when you are finished and want to commit to paper, use the DUMP statement, like so: lprint "Hello" lprint "World!" dump - An additional window style has been added called graphics_nsb_nf. This style opens a graphics window without scroll bars and without a sizing frame. Cut and paste this example: ' draw some ellipses open "Ellipses" for graphics_nsb_nf as #1 print #1, "down" print #1, "place 130 130" for x = 30 to 230 step 10 print #1, "ellipse "; x ; " "; 260 - x next x print #1, "flush" input r$ close #1 - For v0.6a only: A bug was fixed in the debugger. When executing in the 'Run' mode, you no longer see variables update in the variable watch pane, so the program runs at its proper full speed in this mode now. ------------------------------------------------- Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.5 release notes: Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 Shoptalk Systems Al Rights Reserved March 12, 1994 This new 0.5 release gives you several enhancements. The most exciting is the ability to make *.TKN files of your programs! This lets you run large programs without waiting for the compile. Each BASIC statement is compiled only as it is needed. If you build very large programs, and only use half of its features in a sitting, it doesn't even need to compile the other half. To make a *.TKN file of a BASIC program, pull down the Source menu and select Make *.TKN File. Then once the file is created, running it is just as easy. Just pull down the Source menu and select Run *.TKN File. In addition, these *.TKN files will run interchangeably with the files in the Windows version of Liberty BASIC. Because some small differences are sure to exist between both versions of Liberty BASIC, and between Presentation Manager and Windows in general, two system variables Platform$ and Version$ have been added to both the OS/2 and Windows versions. Platform$ will contain the string "OS/2" or "Windows", and Version$ will contain the version #, for example: "1.1". This allows you to add exception code when needed by testing to see what version of Liberty BASIC is running. Other additions: - Trapclose now works with the graphics window type. - The new rule command provides the ability to control the way graphics are drawn in graphics windows. An xor (exclusive or) mode lets you draw an object once, and then just redraw it to erase it without disturbing other objects that intersect it. code example: ' switch to exclusive or print #chart, "rule xor" ' switch to over-draw (the default mode) print #chart, "rule over" See the included DRAW.BAS (new version) for an example of the rule graphics command. - Support for radiobutton controls is added. The syntax is the same as for checkboxes. See the included RADIOBTN.BAS program. NOTE: For now, groupboxes are not supported, and so all radiobuttons in any window belong to the same set, and only one checkbox can be SET at any one time. Until groupboxes are supported, the checkbox control can be used to imitate radiobuttons when more than one set of them is needed in a window. See the IMITATE.BAS program for an example of using checkboxes to imitate radiobuttons. - The File/New menu has been repaired so that no error message is returned. ------------------------------------------------- (Notes from previous version of Liberty BASIC) Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.4 release notes: This new 0.4 release provides powerful new dialog box definition facilities. You can now create your own dialog boxes containing the following controls: - entry fields, using the TEXTBOX command - buttons, using the BUTTON command - statictext, using the STATICTEXT command - listboxes, using the LISTBOX command - comboboxes, using the COMBOBOX command - checkboxes, using the CHECKBOX command Other controls (like texteditors, bmpbuttons, radiobuttons, and more) will be added in future releases. Look at the sample programs CHECKBOX.BAS and CONTACT.BAS for examples of how to use dialog boxes and their controls. NOTE: In the samples the window type dialog is used. The graphics window types also allow use of the above controls, but because of the way Presentation Manager handles controls in non-dialog windows, the TAB button will not cycle through controls, nor will Alt-key combinations work with buttons in non-dialog windows. ----TRAPCLOSE Any dialog box (and later windows of all types) let you define a branch point to transfer execution when a user tries to close it. This is done with the TRAPCLOSE command. See CHECKBOX.BAS and CONTACT.BAS for examples of this technique. ----NOMAINWIN The nomainwin command can be inserted anywhere into your Liberty BASIC programs to prevent the appearance of the Program Named ???.BAS window that automatically appears when you run your programs. See how this is used with the CHECKBOX.BAS and CONTACT.BAS programs. Since it really is best to use TRAPCLOSE when using NOMAINWIN, restrict its use to programs using the dialog window type (for now). ----Observant users of the DRAW.BAS program (included with v0.3) noticed that the drawing of boxes in a graphics window was fouled up. This has been repaired. ----BUG FIX: Earlier versions reported an 'exitLibertyBASIC not understood' message when Exit was selected from the File menu. This is repaired (and then some). ----Printing in Liberty BASIC: Because the port from the Windows version isn't complete, the LPRINT command produces an error. You can still print to LPT1 though by using code like this: open "lpt1" for output as #1 print #1, "this is a test" close #1 The next release will add the ability to create tokenized program files. This will enable creation of distributable programs, which will require the RUN.EXE runtime engine, which will only be available to registered users of Liberty BASIC for a modest fee of $35. This will also make the Windows version available for just $15 more. The runtime engines for these two platforms will be able to run the same tokenized files. This will provide an affordable cross platform tool. ------------------------------------------ (Notes from previous version of Liberty BASIC) Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.3 release notes: Copyright 1992 & 1993 Shoptalk Systems Al Rights Reserved Jan 22, 1994 This third release of Liberty BASIC for OS/2 includes: 1) To our embarrassment, previous versions did not have a pull-down menu for running and debugging. The undocumented way to run and debug was to pop up a menu for the editor by pressing mouse button 2. Now you can pull down the Source menu and select Run or Debug. Our apologies to those who were frustrated or confused on this matter. 2) The graphics are now fourth quadrant (x0,y0 is now in the upper left), as opposed to first quadrant (x0,y0 in the lower left), as Presentation Manager defines it. This makes it more compatible with the Windows version. 3) MORE documentation is included (SUMMARY.TXT and WINDOWS.TXT) describing functions and commands. This is straight from the Windows version and isn't guaranteed to be completely accurate for this version. Press ALT-O to open a file selection dialog box so you can read these files. 4) We include a Tic-Tac-Toe game as a code example. It doesn't play very well, but makes a good demonstration of coding technique in Liberty BASIC. PLEASE give us some feedback. Any suggestions or bug reports are eagerly needed! Contact Carl Gundel on Compuserve 71231,1532 or directly at (508)-872-5315. Next release will add dialog box features! Define your own without special tools! DISTRIBUTION POLICY: This is a BETA version. It is copyrighted material, but our policy for now is to give the OS/2 beta version away. Feel free to copy it and give it to friends and coworkers. Later versions will be shareware and will require registration (like the Windows version). ------------------------------------------ (Notes from previous version of Liberty BASIC) Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.2 release notes: Copyright 1992 & 1993 Shoptalk Systems Al Rights Reserved Dec 30, 1993 About release 0.2: First of all, release 0.2 supports the use of the Tab key when typing and editing BASIC source code. Release 0.1 only let you use the space character, and reported a syntax error when it found a Tab character. This release adds the ability to open a graphics window and perform drawing. It also lets you read the mouse inside of this window. See the file windows.txt for more information. Later releases will add more types of windows including text, dialog box, generic windows, etc... Buttons can be added to the graphic window. For examples of how to program graphics and how to use buttons, see the files BUTTONS.BAS, DRAW.BAS, and GRAPHICS.BAS. DIFFERENCES FROM THE WINDOWS VERSION: - When drawing graphics, keep in mind that Presentation Manager uses the lower left of the screen as 0,0 and Windows uses the upper left. This means some minor recoding on your part. Later we might add that coordinate translation into Liberty BASIC. (This is fixed in this version 0.3, see above!) KNOWN BUGS: - Don't use the first line in the source editor for anything but a REMARK, the compiler only compiles from the second line on. ------------------------------------------ (Notes from previous version of Liberty BASIC) Liberty BASIC for OS/2 beta version 0.1 release notes: Copyright 1992 & 1993 Shoptalk Systems Al Rights Reserved Nov 2, 1993 Liberty BASIC was originally released for the MS Windows platform almost two years ago as shareware. This is the first beta release of a port from Windows to OS/2 platform. This release does not include the multi-windowing features of the Windows version yet. No graphics are supported and no dialog box controls on this platform yet. To get a good look at what this software will soon look like, take a look at the Windows version. The Windows version is called LB09D.ZIP and is available in the IBMPRO forum and the WINSHARE forum. What is supported? Here is a list of supported functions: ABS() ACS() ASN() ATN() ASC() BEEP CHR$() CLOSE CLS CONFIRM COS() DATE$() DIM END EOF() EXP() FIELD FOR...NEXT GET GETTRIM GOSUB...RETURN GOTO IF...THEN...ELSE INPUT$() INPUT INPUT # INSTR() INT() LEFT$() LEN() LET LOF() LOG() LPRINT MID$() OPEN PRINT PRINT # PUT REM RETURN RIGHT$() RND() STOP SIN() SORT STR$() TAN() TIME$() TRACE TRIM$() USING() VAL() WHILE...WEND WORD$() It is possible that a few of these do not work, but certainly most of them will. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Carl Gundel 508 872-5315 CIS 71231,1532