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I had the chm helpfile open when my GLBasic was updated last night. As a result, the update of the compiler worked, but it said that it couldn't overwrite the helpfile.
When I do a manual update now it tells me I'm running the latest version, but I would be using the old version of the helpfile.

I know I can use the link you posted a few days ago for me to update manually, but I thought I'd list the bug so you have it for future updates.
Is it possible to have the update ensure the GUI and helpfile are closed first as part of its process like Firefox does?

FYI : The version file that opened after the update only had the changes up to v 6.206 in it, it didn't list the changes for 6.217 or 6.222 even though my compiler version is showing as 6.222.

I know with other languages, 2D doesn't use 3D graphics accelleration and therefore you're actually quicker doing 2D graphics on 3D surfaces.
There's also commands to lock bitmaps before updating them to speed up commands like setpixel if you're doing lots of updates per frame.

Are any commands quicker in GLBasic than others because of the way they're implented on the back end?
I've started work on a particle system but don't want to get too far doing it all in 2D for example if I should be doing all the particles on 3D surfaces.

I don't know if you consider this a bug but I'll list it anyway as it's not the behaviour I expected

In the following code
type mytype
   myvar1
   myvar2
   my var 3
endtype

Instead of the compiler erroring and pointing to the line "my var 3", it just reports a syntax error pointing at the line "type mytype".
Admittedly there is a syntax error within the type that it's pointing at the start of, but I would have expected the compiler to either say syntax error and point at the correct line, or give a more descriptive error message to suggest that there may be a fault with one of the members of the type.

I spent a while trying to work out if the "type mytype" line had a hidden character on it, or if there was a problem with the previous code block. Seeing I have about 30 members in my type it took me a while to realise that one of the ones off the screen was at fault.

I've put the demo of GLBasic on my work (SHH!!!  ) pc  to do some coding in my lunch breaks. I needed to install it as local administrator as my account doesn't have administration rights.

So I've installed as the local admin then logged in as my standard user account. I may have created the project while still logged in as admin or maybe I created it after I logged in on my account with standard access, I'm not sure. Anyway,  I have logged in with my standard account, opened the project, then hit f5 to compile. The compiler would return straight away with  :-
*** Finished ***
Elapsed: 0.0 sec. Time: 14:24
Build: 0 succeeded.

This would happen regardless of whether there was 1 line or 100 lines of code, and whether the code was all correct or full of errors.

I ran a trace on the exe and what I eventually found was the problem was the trying to update the gbap file and couldn't for some reason (file ownership perhaps?). It wouldn't return an error about problems accessing the file, it would return to the IDE straight away with the error as mentioned.

When I deleted the gbap file and recreated the project I could then compile the program. I also deleted the directory the project was in and recreated it, so there's a possibility it was permissions or corruption of the folder rather than the project itself.

I can now recreate the problem as follows (which suggests a corrupt gbap file)
1) I restore the gbap file from my trash to somewhere on my system (eg. desktop) - I've attached the gbap file to this post
2) Double click it to open the editor
3) Press the New File icon
4) Type in some code that doesn't work (eg. eruiogheruipheuihweruiogh)
5) Press compile
6) I get the following output

*** Finished ***
Elapsed: 0.0 sec. Time: 14:24
Build: 0 succeeded.

Hopefully if you load the attached gbap file you will be able to reproduce the error

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Is it possible to run another IDE with GLBasic? It appears that the current one just calls G++ with arguments to generate the code and run it.

Is it possible to share what is being run when you hit "compile" so that I could see if I can get it to run from a different IDE?

There are two reasons for this
1) I'd like to use an IDE that supports code folding and a couple of other things the current one doesn't support at the moment
2) Just because it's an interesting thing to do

I'd like to request that when stepping through code you have a key to show you what the current frontbuffer looks like, and another key to show you what is currently in the back buffer.

Hi Gernot,
While checking the modified version of the documentation I had made (see http://www.glbasic.com/forum/index.php?topic=2690.0) to ensure I hadn't missed any commands, I thought I would check the original pages to see if any commands had been missed there. I found several commands were missing from the "Commands by Category" pages in the help file

Hopefully you'll like my changes enough to incorporate them into the official manual  (no problem if you don't!) but so as to improve the documentation regardless, here are the commands missing from the pages under "commands by category".

ADDRESSOF()
BOUNDS()
BOXCOLL
CLOSEFILE
ENDINLINE
ENDOFFILE()
GETFILESIZE()
INTEGER()
OPENFILE()
READ....
SETSHOEBOX
SHOWSCREEN
SOCK_....
WRITE....

Also, "NOT" seems to be missing ANY documentation (having looked at bNOT which references bAND, I would have expected the "AND" page to list the "NOT" command). I did a search of all help files and NOT seems to be missing entirely - unless there is no "NOT" command?

Thanks for such a great program!!!

[then]

Is it possible to allow "then" to be allowed in multiline if commands?

I have a tendancy to write
if [blah] then
   do this
else
   do that
end if

It would make my life easier if that was accepted by the compiler, or at least automatically removed if you typed "if (blah) then [enter key]"

Not a big issue and there's probably a lot more exciting things on the priority list, but if it's a quick-fix then I'd find it helpful.

Just to let you know, if you're behind an authenticating proxy (like I am at wor... umm... somewhere  ) then trying to do an version check doesn't bring up the proxy authentication window, it just immediately says "you're up to date" even if you're not. I'm not too concerned about this, just thought I'd mention it so you know.

How about putting save on the File menu? There's a "Save All" but no "Save", so I keep hitting "Alt-F,S" and it doesn't do anything.
There's a save icon so I would have expected there to be a save option in the file menu.

I've had a look at the findpath example and there doesn't seem to be a way to get findpath to evaluate diagonals, it only seems to evaluate horizontal and vertical directions.

Is there a way to get it to do diagonals as well? I'd write my own version that did but I've never managed to work out how to code an A* algorithm any time I've looked at it

Any takers as to how you'd "copy protect" your game, giving people who pay for it a serial number to "register" their game?

You'd obviously need some
* Program to generate valid serial numbers for your game
* Something in your game to check that the serial number that has been input is valid
* The serial number would need to be stored somewhere in your program or in a separate "registration" file (though this would make pirating easy)

Thoughts?

(Incidently, I don't have a game ready to sell, I'm just trying to be forward thinking  in case I ever do a good enough game )

Just wondering if there's a way to make an application with GLBasic that will run in the background with nothing on the task bar, and have an icon for it on the system tray. eg. A music player so I can listen to music without having a window or a button on my task bar?

Thanks!

IDEal (for B3D) has a great type ahead feature that I'd love to see in the GLBasic IDE. If you type "fun" for example, it will show you that the letters "fun" mean that you're most likely writing the word "function". If you press tab at this point, it will auto-complete the word, writing the word "function" for you.
It will also type ahead user variables and types - a very handy and timesaving IDE feature.

It took me a while to find what appears to be crashing my game in progress.

I had the following :-
LOADANIM "xyz.png",1,100,25
DRAWANIM 1,0,PlayerX,PlayerY

Which worked as expected (my png file had 3 frames in it and was 100 x 75 in total size).

I did some modifications to the png file, and ended up making the file smaller than what LoadAnim had in the command. (eg, the end size of xyz.png was 80x20).
The loadanim didn't cause any problems (which I think it should have).
When it tries to do the drawanim command now it crashes the program with
programname.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Thoughts?

If I load an animation with 2 frames and then use drawanim to draw frame 3 (or 100, or 1000), should it give me an error? It just doesn't draw anything. I would have expected a "frame out of bounds" or similar error.

Thanks!

I have a few questions about the IDE interface
1) Can you get the "insert Function/Subroutine" buttons to insert where your cursor is rather than at the bottom of the source file?
2) Does the "Save" function have a hot key? I keep hitting cntl-F then S to save my in progress code and it doesn't work. Why does it have an icon (save, not save-all) but no entry on the file menu?
Actually, none of the items on the "file" menu have hot keys (no letters are underlined on it) - is that a bug?

As a new user of GLBasic, I'm having difficulty finding some things in the documentaion. I realise that Kitty Hello would have a million things on his plate that people want implemented, so my question is, is there a way for other people to contribute to the documentation? I've looked for a community wiki or similar and haven't found one. I would be happy to contribute to this (so Kitty Hello doesn't have to do everything!) if there was a way to do it.

I'm finding getting used to GLBasic is taking a bit longer than it might otherwise because some things I expect to be in the documentation either aren't there or I can't find them easily. Also, I'm not always connected to the internet so it would be great to have everything documented so I can find how to do something when I'm offline.

I've made a list of the things I've come across that I've either found so far or that I would like to see in the documentation (hopefully this is seen as constructive help!!!! I apologise if it sounds like I am complaining!!!)

1) A separate section in the documentation describing just the data types and what size they are for the different platforms. This would also detail how to declare each type so that you know that variable$ is a string for example. I keep having to go looking through the tutorial to find out which symbol to use for floats and which for ints.

2) Explaining how to have multiple source files, and how to use a  in your project. I spent a long time looking for an "include file" command before searching for "multiple source files" on the website gave me the answer (though I had to read through a few pages to find it)

3) In the "Commands By Category" section, further sub-grouping of the commands. Eg. If I want to do file manipulation (seek, read, write a file etc), but don't know the commands I have to look in the Input-Output section, then look at the ~50 commands that it gives there to find which one I need. If Input-Output was further broken up it would make it quicker to find the right command

eg.
Input-Output
- File Manipulation
  - Read, CopyFile etc
- Input Devices
  - MouseAxis, Joystate etc.
- Graphics
  - GetScreenSize, LoadBMP etc
- Fonts
  - GetFontSize etc.
- etc

4) Different operating systems - Information about the standard requirements of each platform. eg. What the acceptable screen sizes are, maximum program size, number of colours you can use, commands that don't work on a particular platform (if applicable)

5) How to use the profiler

6) What the Multisampling option is for on the options screen

7) Commands like ASIN and bXOR don't have any documentation. Others like "break" are missing examples.

A section on performance eg. getpixel isn't usable for intensive real time use, hibernate frees up cpu cycles when used etc.

9) The example for the DEC code has no DEC commands in it.

10) LoadBMP should list the different file formats it will load

11) What the Tools distributed with GLBasic are and what they're for.

12) How to debug your code.


Again, my apologies if this sounds like I'm doing a lot of complaining. This seems like a brilliant product so far - hopefully my comments will help improve the it.

A few bugs I've found in the latest version
1) Crocogame - Won't compile as PLAYMUSIC (line 475) is missing a parameter
2) Once I add either a "0" or a "1" to the PLAYMUSIC command to get it to compile and try to run it, it dies with the error "CrocoGame.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience."  Error details - "AppName: crocogame.exe    AppVer: 0.0.0.0    ModName: nvoglnt.dll
ModVer: 6.14.11.7516    Offset: 001b74b7"
3) When I go into help for the first time it has a "page cannot be found" error. When I click one of the topics on the left hand side, help now works.

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Is it possible to have the section in the documentation about compiling for different platforms expanded to include the limitations of the various platforms?

I know for example it would be hard to say for a windows pc or mac what the maximum possible resolution you can use is as it's machine dependant, but I imagine for any handheld devices for example that there are only a few video modes that work.
Also, anything else that you'd need to know to compile the program you've just written for another platform - eg. maximum number of concurrent sounds, max program/memory size (where applicable), colour depth options, input devices that work on a particular device (eg. I think I read on one of the forum posts that you can simulate a touch screen on a handheld platform with mouse clicks on a pc).