BBC BASIC Programmers' Reference

3d_object_order_can_matter

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

3D object order can matter by Richard Russell, November 2018 One would not expect the order in which 3D objects are specified (i.e. the order in which they are listed in the arrays passed to PROC_render) to matter - after all the GPU has to plot them in Z-order anyway to ensure that foreground objects occlude background objects. However there appears to be an important exception when it comes to objects with transparent (or partially transparent) textures.

accessing_20files_20with_20no_20extension

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Accessing files with no extension by Jon Ripley, May 2006 When using OPENIN, OPENUP and OPENOUT to create or access files that do not have a file extension the default action of BBC BASIC is to append a .bbc file extension. To create or access files with no file extension you must add a full stop to the file name.

accessing_20huge_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Accessing huge files by Richard Russell, October 2007 Most of the BBC BASIC for Windows file-handling statements and functions are fully compatible with files in excess of 2 Gbytes (2^31 bytes) in length. You can successfully open (using OPENIN or

accessing_20the_20fast_20sys_20interface

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Accessing the fast SYS interface by Jon Ripley, July 2006 The SYS statement allows you to call functions in the following DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) by name. Functions in all other DLLs must be called by their address in memory. * ADVAPI32.DLL

accessing_20the_20shell_20clipboard

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Accessing the Shell Clipboard by Richard Russell, October 2010 Windows Explorer lets you copy files from one place in the filesystem to another (e.g. from one folder to another, or from one drive to another) by means of Copy and Paste operations, analogous to how you might copy-and-paste text from one document to another. This article describes how you can access the

accessing_20two_20joysticks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Accessing two joysticks by Richard Russell, April 2007 The BBC BASIC ADVAL statement allows you to access only one joystick. If you need to access two joysticks you can do that using the Windows API. The procedure below allows you to read the X, Y, Z and

adding_20_27create_20new_20bbc_20basic_20program_20file_27_20to_20the_20shell_20new_20menu

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Adding 'Create new BBC BASIC program file' to the Shell new menu by Jon Ripley, July 2007 This article shows how to add an option in to the file explorer Shell new menu to create a new BBC BASIC for Windows program file. To do this manually run the registry editor and navigate to:

adding_20an_20event_20to_20the_20event_20queue

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Adding an event to the event queue by Richard Russell, August 2014 Normally, event interrupts (e.g. ON MOUSE, ON MOVE, ON SYS and ON TIME) take place as a result of user actions such as mouse clicks, menu selections, moving/re-sizing a window or (in the case of ON TIME) periodically. The events are initially added to a 32-event FIFO queue, and then automatically dispatched to the specified BASIC handler routine (if any).

adding_20an_20up-down_20control_20to_20the_20main_20window

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Adding an up-down control to the main window by Richard Russell, May 2006 The BB4W help documentation describes how to add an up-down control to a dialogue box here but doesn't tell you how to add one to the main output window. The code below illustrates the creation of an up-down control which is 'attached' to an edit box, which is the usual way in which one is used. First install the necessary library:

adding_20tooltips_20to_20a_20dialogue_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Adding tooltips to a dialogue box by Richard Russell and Howard Bolton, May 2006 Tooltips are small (usually light yellow) windows containing useful information, which pop up when you 'hover' the mouse over a particular control or region of the screen. This article describes how you can add tooltips to a dialogue box; there are other articles for adding tooltips to a

adding_20tooltips_20to_20the_20status_20bar

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Adding tooltips to the status bar by Richard Russell, January 2007 If your program uses the WINLIB library to create a toolbar then you can easily add tooltips to the toolbar buttons using the PROC_addtooltips function provided. However if you use the same library to create a

aliasing_20strings_20and_20byte_20arrays

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Aliasing strings and byte arrays by Richard Russell, March 2014 BBC BASIC provides two data types in which you can store a set of byte (8-bit, or character) values: one is the string (for example A$) and the other is the byte array (for example A&()

aligning_20structures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Aligning structures by Richard Russell, June 2010 BBC BASIC's structures are by default aligned on a DWORD boundary, i.e. the memory address of the first member of the structure will always be an exact multiple of four. This is a requirement for some structures passed to Windows

allocating_20arrays_20using_20the_20windows_20api

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Allocating arrays using the Windows or SDL 2.0 API by Richard Russell, December 2006 You can allocate arrays, using DIM, either on BASIC's heap (global and PRIVATE arrays) or on the stack (LOCAL arrays). Using a combination of these will satisfy the needs of most programs. For example a skeleton program might be structured as follows:

allocating_20item_20ids_20automatically

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Allocating item IDs automatically by Michael Hutton, June 2010; amended by Richard Russell Whenever menu items are created (and this also applies to controls within a dialog box for example) you must assign each of them a unique ID. For example: SYS "AppendMenu", hmenu%, 0, 100, "Menu Item&1" SYS "AppendMenu", hmenu%, 0, 101, "Menu Item&2"

allocating_and_freeing_memory_blocks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Allocating and freeing memory blocks by Richard Russell, June 2020 In BBC BASIC, a block of memory can be allocated either from the heap or from the stack; the statements to do this are as follows: DIM memory%% size% This statement allocates

alternative_20comment_20styles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Alternative comment styles by Richard Russell, May 2010 There are three main ways of incorporating multi-line comments (remarks) in your program: Using the REM statement REM This is comment line one REM This is comment line two REM This is comment line three

alternative_20for_20next_20behaviour

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Alternative FOR NEXT behaviour by Richard Russell, July 2007 Although the FOR...NEXT loop is fundamental to all versions of BASIC, dialects differ in its detailed implementation. In BBC BASIC FOR...NEXT loops have the following properties: * The body of the loop is always executed at least once, irrespective of the values specified in the FOR statement.

alternative_20pseudo-random_20numbers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Alternative pseudo-random numbers by Jon Ripley, August 2006 BBC BASIC for Windows provides a pseudo-random number generator for use in BASIC programs but has no built-in support for generating pseudo-random numbers from assembly language programs. This article contains code to add support for generating pseudo-random numbers from assembly language that can be added to any program.

arabic_20text_20on_20the_20mainwin_20and_20printer_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Arabic text on the mainwin and printer (LBB) by Richard Russell, December 2014 LB Booster supports Unicode, so it is possible for a program to contain, and for the mainwin and printer to show, characters from foreign alphabets (Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew etc.)

array_20arithmetic

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Array arithmetic by Richard Russell, March 2014 LB Booster supports the ability to perform arithmetic operations on whole arrays, that is the operation is performed individually on every element of the array without you having to code a loop. For example you can add, subtract, multiply or divide arrays as follows:

arrays_20of_20structures_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Arrays of structures (LBB) by Richard Russell, December 2014 One of the language extensions provided by LB Booster is native arrays of structures. These can be useful for structured data storage within a program, or when calling a Windows API function (for example

assembler

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Assembler Data conversion * Converting binary to BCD * Converting 40-bit floats to 64-bit floats * Converting a number to a string Miscellaneous * Calling BASIC from assembler code * Calling internal routines from assembler code * Generating pseudo-random numbers (compatible with BASIC's RND function) * Alternative pseudo-random numbers (increased sequence length of 2^64-1) * Optimising integer division * SOUND and ENVELOPE in assembler * Passing data to assembler code *…

associating_20an_20application_20with_20a_20file_20type

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Associating an application with a file type by Richard Russell, May 2015 The code below associates an application with a particular file type, as indicated by its extension. The extension is specified as Extension$ (don't forget the dot) and the command used to open files with that extension is specified as

associating_20an_20application_20with_20an_20extension_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Associating an application with an extension (LBB) by Richard Russell, May 2015 The code below associates an application with a particular file type, as indicated by its extension. The extension is specified as Extension$ (don't forget the dot) and the command used to open files with that extension is specified as

asynchronous_20speech

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Asynchronous speech by Richard Russell, October 2016 The supplied example program SPEAK.BBC outputs the speech synchronously, that is PROCspeak() does not return to the caller until the speech output is complete. That will often be what is wanted, but in some circumstances you may wish to get on with doing something else while a phrase is being spoken. The programs below illustrate how that may be achieved; the first uses the

automating_20mouse_20actions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Automating mouse actions by Richard Russell, October 2008 You may on occasion want to automate mouse actions, such as simulating the effect of the user clicking a button or rotating the wheel. One use for such a facility could, for example, be in a training or tutorial situation where you wish to illustrate how to use the mouse to achieve a particular result.

avoiding_20resource_20leaks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Avoiding resource leaks by Richard Russell, November 2007 A resource leak is the term used when a program uses some finite system resource but doesn't free it again when it has finished with it. For example a program might allocate some memory, and never free it (commonly called a

bbc_20basic_20language

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

BBC BASIC Language (Articles about the editor and compiler have been moved to Program Editor and IDE) BASIC programs * Alternative comment styles * Alternative FOR NEXT behaviour * Detokenising tokenised code * Discovering how a program was run * Finding the BBC BASIC installation directory * Finding saved BASIC file format * Finding the version number * Fitting programs in the demo version * How to avoid GOTOs * Notes for RISC OS users * Object Orientated programming…

calling_20basic_20from_20assembler_20code

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Calling BASIC from assembler code by Richard Russell, November 2008 You can't actually call BASIC from assembler code, but you can achieve an equivalent capability quite easily. What it involves is returning from the assembler code to BASIC, executing a BASIC procedure, and then re-entering the assembler code at the right place.

calling_20dll_20functions_20that_20return_20strings

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Calling DLL functions that return strings by Richard Russell, March 2015 Passing a string as an input parameter to a DLL function is straightforward, but if the parameter is intended to receive a string output by the function then there are two important requirements:

calling_20dlls_20that_20return_20floats

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Calling DLLs that return floats by Richard Russell, May 2007, amended April 2013 BBC BASIC for Windows implements the SYS statement for calling routines in external DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries). This statement has an optional TO clause which specifies a variable that should receive an integer value (if any) returned from the DLL:

calling_20internal_20routines_20from_20assembler_20code

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Calling internal routines from assembler code by Richard Russell, January 2016 A small selection of subroutines, internal to the BASIC interpreter, is exposed to the assembly language programmer so that they may be called from his own assembler code. These are grouped into two sets; the most commonly needed subroutines are callable by

calling_20object_20methods_20using_20structures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Calling object methods using structures by Richard Russell, March 2007 Calling COM, OLE or ActiveX object methods generally involves the use of a rather arcane syntax, such as this example taken from the BB4W manual under Displaying GIF and JPEG images: SYS !(!gpp%+24), gpp%, ^hmw% : REM. IPicture::get_Width SYS !(!gpp%+28), gpp%, ^hmh% : REM. IPicture::get_Height

capturing_20audio_20using_20mci

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Capturing audio using MCI by Richard Russell, October 2010 The article Inputting real-time audio describes how to input audio data and make it available to your program for display, analysis or capture. If you simply need to record audio to a WAV file you can use that technique, but a much easier method is to use the capture facilities built into the Windows

capturing_20the_20contents_20of_20a_20window

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Capturing the contents of a window by Richard Russell, May 2007 (updated) You can capture, as a bitmap file, the contents of your program's main output window using the *SCREENSAVE (or *GSAVE) command. But what if you want to save not your output window but the contents of a dialogue box, Direct3D window or other window? There is no equivalent built-in command to do that.

cascaded_20error_20handling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Cascaded error handling by Richard Russell, February 2007 See also Structured Exception Handling and Cascaded ON CLOSE handling There may be situations when you need to take some remedial action in the event of an error (for example to terminate a Windows API operation) but then to pass the responsibility for reporting the error to an existing error handler. You can do that using a combination of the

cascaded_20on_20close_20handling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Cascaded ON CLOSE handling by Richard Russell, September 2010 The article Cascaded error handling explains how a procedure or function can take some 'local' remedial action in the event of an error (for example to cleanup after a Windows API operation) and then pass responsibility for dealing with the error to the code from which it was called. In principle there may be several cascaded procedures or functions, each of which needs to handle the error before passing it 'down the chain'.

centering_20the_20graphics_20origin

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Centering the graphics origin by Richard Russell, October 2010 The following code will centre the graphics origin both horizontally and vertically, irrespective of the size and shape of the window: VDU 26 IF POS REM SDL thread sync (needed in BBCSDL only) ORIGIN @vdu.tr%,@vdu.tb%

changing_20a_20control_27s_20colours

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Changing a control's colours by Richard Russell, September 2007 You will normally want dialogue box controls to use their default colour scheme, for reasons of uniformity with other Windows applications, but occasionally you may want to change the foreground and/or background colours for special purposes. There are a number of techniques that can be used to achieve this, for example you can create a coloured Edit Box by using a

changing_20the_20case_20of_20a_20string

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Changing the case of a string by Jon Ripley, May 2006 The FNUSING library supplied with BBC BASIC for Windows contains the functions FNlower and FNupper which can be used to change the case of a string to lower case or UPPER CASE respectively. These are described in the main help documentation

changing_20the_20document_20name

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Changing the document name by Richard Russell, April 2010 When you output to a printer from a BBC BASIC program the 'document name' is set to BBC BASIC output. The principal purpose of this name is to identify the print job in the Print Manager's list of queued documents. For example if you need to delete the document from the queue you can identify it using this name.

changing_20the_20font_20of_20a_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Changing the font of a control by Richard Russell, October 2006 By default a Windows control (e.g. edit box, list box or static box) uses a font which in most circumstances should be suitable for your needs. This is particularly so for a control in a dialogue box, because the default font size is determined by system-wide settings which are under the control of the user (for example he may have selected Large Fonts).

changing_20the_20mdi_20background_20colour

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Changing the MDI background colour by Richard Russell, March 2007 If your program uses a Multiple Document Interface, by means of the MDILIB library, the background of the MDI client area is filled with the COLOR_APPWORKSPACE system colour, which by default is a mid-grey. Although you can change this colour in Windows Control Panel that will affect all applications, which you probably don't want to do.

changing_20the_20mouse_20speed

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Changing the mouse speed by Richard Russell, January 2011 You can change the mouse speed, that is how fast the mouse pointer moves when you physically move the mouse, as follows: SPI_SETMOUSESPEED = 113 SYS "SystemParametersInfo", SPI_SETMOUSESPEED, 0, speed%, 0

changing_20the_20serial_20buffer_20size

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Changing the serial buffer size by Richard Russell, December 2012 When you open a serial port for input, a buffer (queue) is automatically created to hold incoming data until it is read by your program. This buffer is typically 4096 bytes in size (although that may vary according to the version of Windows, serial port driver etc.).

changing_20the_20step_20size_20of_20an_20up-down_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Changing the step size of an up-down control by Richard Russell, July 2014 When you create an up-down control you can easily choose the minimum and maximum values, and the direction in which it changes (i.e. whether clicking on the up arrow increases or decreases the value). However you cannot choose the step size: each click always changes the value by either +1 or -1 (or zero if the limit has been reached).

checking_20if_20a_20library_20is_20installed

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Checking if a library is INSTALLed by Jon Ripley, January 2006 BBC BASIC for Windows provides no built in function to check whether a library has been loaded into memory using the INSTALL command. The following routine FN_IsInstalled(lib$) implements a method to check if a library is currently

checking_20whether_20a_20directory_20exists

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Checking whether a directory exists by Richard Russell, May 2006, amended May 2010 It's easy to check whether a file exists: you just try to open it: DEF FNcheckfile(file$) LOCAL F% F% = OPENIN(file$) IF F% CLOSE #F% = F%

clearing_20the_20contents_20of_20a_20structure

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Clearing the contents of a structure by Jon Ripley, May 2007 The following routine will clear the contents of any structure passed to it: REM Clear any structure (by Jon Ripley) DEF PROC_ClearStruct(S{}) LOCAL E{}, F{} DIM E{} = S{}, F{} = S{} E{} = S{} : S{} = F{} ENDPROC

coding_20the_20pause_20instruction

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Coding the PAUSE instruction by Richard Russell, November 2009 If you want to use the PAUSE instruction (available on Pentium 4 and later CPUs) one way would be to encode it using DBs: db &F3 : db &90 but a more convenient and elegant way is as follows:

colored_20text_20in_20the_20mainwin

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Colored text in the mainwin by Richard Russell, May 2013 Liberty BASIC can only display black text on a white background in the mainwin. LB Booster, however, allows both the text and background colors to be changed. For example: !COLOR 15 !COLOR 129 print "White text on a red background"

colour_20text_20in_20a_20list_20view

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Colour text in a List View by Michael Hutton 22/01/2009 Getting windows to print colour text in a list view involes intercepting windows messages about the state of its current Paint cycle. When a common control (in this case the list view) is about to paint (draw) something it sends a message to its parent window informing it of what it is about to do. We have to intercept this NM_CUSTOMDRAW message and process it ourselves. Unfortunately, by the time the message has got through to BB4W to b…

commented_20example_20programs

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Commented Example Programs It has been suggested that it would be helpful to have, in addition to the set of example programs supplied with BBC BASIC for Windows, versions of those programs with extra comments and/or more meaningful variable and procedure/function names

commenting_20library_20code

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Commenting library code by Jon Ripley, July 2006 All programs and libraries should be supplied with adequate documentation to enable yourself and other programmers to use the library in their programs. Comments form an important part of library documentation and should not be overlooked. Time taken during development to adequately comment a library can save time in the future when the library is used or updated.

communication_20and_20input-output

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Communication and Input-Output Console mode programming * Writing console mode programs that will also run in the IDE Inter-process communication and automation * Component Object Model programming * Opening a file by dropping or clicking * Receiving dropped files * Sharing a structure between processes Network and socket programming * Downloading a file from a URL * Fetching a secure web page * Finding the host IP address * Finding the MAC address * Getting Connected a…

comparing_20arrays_20for_20equality

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Comparing arrays for equality by Richard Russell, November 2012 Supposing you have two numeric arrays (of the same size) and you want to test whether they are identical, i.e. that their contents are the same. Obviously you could iterate through the indices, comparing each element in turn with the corresponding element in the other array, but that's a bit messy. Luckily there is a much neater way to do it:

compatibility_20with_20wine_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Compatibility with Wine (LBB) by Richard Russell, January 2016 LB Booster will run satisfactorily under Linux (x86) using Wine but there are a few known compatibility issues: * In order for LBB to run at all, the directory lib must first be manually created as a subdirectory of the Wine

compatibility_20with_20wine

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Compatibility with Wine by Richard Russell, October 2007, updated August 2012 Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API for use with Unix-based Operating Systems such as Linux or MacOS X (the use of an Intel x86-based processor is assumed). The design goal of Wine is to allow Windows applications to run successfully on such Operating Systems, but inevitably the emulation of Windows isn't perfect. You can find out more about Wine

component_20object_20model_20programming

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Component Object Model programming by Malcolm Marten, May 2008 The Component Object Model, or COM for short (not to be confused with COMmunication ports!), is a Microsoft protocol allowing programs to cooperate in sharing data. The key word in COM is

controlling_20the_20audio_20mixer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Controlling the audio mixer by Richard Russell, July 2007 Note: On Windows Vista and Windows 7 each running application has its own independent audio mixer. The code listed here will work correctly, but the mixer controlled is that for the specific application.

controlling_20the_20master_20volume

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Controlling the Master Volume by Richard Russell, October 2016 The main Help documentation describes how to control the sound volume but in Windows Vista and later each running application has its own volume control and the code shown there affects only the sound output from your own program. If instead you want to control the

controlling_20the_20windows_20taskbar

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Controlling the Windows taskbar by Richard Russell, August 2007 The code listed in this article allows you to control various aspects of the Windows taskbar, in particular to hide and show the deskband, notification icons and clock: In the normal configuration, the

converting_20a_20number_20to_20a_20string

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Converting a number to a string by Richard Russell, January 2015 You may wish to convert a number to a string in assembly language (equivalent to the STR$ function in BASIC). This can easily be done by calling an internal routine within the interpreter. Here is how to do it (requires

converting_20binary_20coded_20decimal

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Converting Binary Coded Decimal By JGH, April 2007 Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) is a method of representing a decimal number as a hexadecimal value using the hex digits 0-9 and ignoring A-F. For example, the number 21 (hex &15) would be represented as &21 (decimal 33). It can be a convenient internal representation of decimal numbers as each hexadecimal digit can be displayed without any further processing. See

converting_20binary_20to_20bcd

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:21+00:00

Converting binary to BCD by Richard Russell, June 2007 Converting binary (base-2) to BCD (base-10) is a frequently needed operation, especially when printing out numeric results in decimal. There are standard methods of doing this in assembly language, mostly using the DAA (Decimal Adjust after Addition) instruction, but if it is acceptable to use the Floating Point Unit (Numeric Coprocessor) then there is a much easier method.

converting_20graphics_20coordinates

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Converting graphics coordinates by Richard Russell, January 2007 If your program outputs its graphics using only BBC BASIC graphics statements then all the coordinates need to be supplied in BBC BASIC units, that is (0,0) is at the bottom left-hand corner of the graphics viewport and each pixel corresponds to

converting_20islamic_20dates

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:19+00:00

Converting Islamic dates by Richard Russell, August 2015 The code below shows how to convert between Western (Gregorian) and Islamic (Hijri) dates; it requires Windows Vista or later: year% = 2015 : month% = 8 : day% = 14 PROC_GregorianToHijri(year%, month%, day%) PRINT year%, month%, day% PROC_HijriToGregorian(year%, month%, day%) PRINT year%, month%, day% END DEF PROC_GregorianToHijri(RETURN year%, RETURN month%, RETURN day%) …

converting_20programs_20from_20risc_20os_20to_20windows

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Converting programs from RISC OS to Windows by Richard Russell, October 2009 The conversion of WIMP-based BBC BASIC programs (i.e. programs having a Graphical User Interface) from RISC OS to Windows is a very broad subject, and it would be virtually impossible to provide a comprehensive guide. Therefore this article takes the form of a Case Study, dealing specifically with the conversion of one program:

converting_2040-bit_20floats_20to_2064-bit_20floats

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Converting 40-bit floats to 64-bit floats by Richard Russell, August 2014 The assembly language routine below converts a 40-bit floating-point value, in the registers cl edx, into a 64-bit floating-point ('double') value, in the registers ecx edx:

copy_20key_20functionality_20with_20get_20and_20inkey

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Copy Key functionality with GET and INKEY by Richard Russell, April 2008 BBC BASIC for Windows and BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 emulate the Copy Key functionality provided on the BBC Microcomputer and other Acorn machines, but only at the Immediate Mode prompt or when user input is being requested using the INPUT statement; Copy Key editing is

counting_20the_20characters_20in_20a_20unicode_20string

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Counting the characters in a Unicode string by Richard Russell, March 2010 BBC BASIC for Windows provides native support for the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane, allowing you to work with, output and print a wide range of foreign-language and other character sets with very little extra effort. The main

creating_20a_20chm_20version_20of_20the_20lb_20help_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Creating a CHM version of the LB Help files Creating a CHM version of the Liberty Basic v4.5.1 Help files The Help system supplied with Liberty Basic has been the source of some debate. Liberty Basic v4.03 and earlier came with a file in WinHelp format which opened in the

creating_20a_20custom_20graphics_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Creating a custom graphics control by Richard Russell, August 2014 BBC BASIC supports drawing text, graphics, images etc. to the 'mainwin' and, by means of the MULTIWIN library, to one or more separate windows. The code listed below demonstrates how to create a custom graphics control to which such output can also be drawn. This allows you to display animated graphics etc. in a dialogue box.

creating_20a_20dialogue_20box_20from_20a_20resource

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Creating a dialogue box from a resource by Richard Russell, May 2006, revised April 2012 The normal method of creating a dialogue box in BBC BASIC for Windows is to call the procedures in the WINLIB2 library: * PROC_pushbutton * PROC_checkbox

creating_20a_20globally_20unique_20identifier

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Creating a Globally Unique Identifier by Richard Russell, April 2007 A Globally Unique Identifier, or GUID for short, is a 128-bit (16 byte) number which, as its name suggests, is intended to be unique in the world - or possibly in the universe! GUIDs are often represented in a textual form as follows:

creating_20a_20keyboard_20accelerator_20table_20from_20a_20resource

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Creating a keyboard accelerator table from a resource by Jon Ripley, August 2007 The normal method of checking for keyboard hot keys is to use INKEY with a negative argument: SYS "GetForegroundWindow" TO hWnd% IF hWnd% = @hwnd% THEN IF INKEY-2 THEN IF INKEY-86 THEN PROCnew :REM Ctrl+N IF INKEY-55 THEN PROCopen :REM Ctrl+O ENDIF REM ... ENDIF

creating_20a_20menu_20from_20a_20resource

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Creating a menu from a resource by Jon Ripley, June 2006 The normal method of creating a menu is to use the Windows API functions “CreateMenu”, “CreatePopupMenu” and “AppendMenu” to create a menu structure: SYS "CreatePopupMenu" TO m_file% SYS "AppendMenu", m_file%, 0, 100, "&New"+CHR$9+"Ctrl+N" SYS "AppendMenu", m_file%, 0, 101, "&Open"+CHR$9+"Ctrl+O" SYS "AppendMenu", m_file%, 0, 102, "&Save"+CHR$9+"Ctrl+S" SYS "AppendMenu", m_file%, 0, 103, "Save &…

creating_20a_20png_20file_20from_20a_20windows_20icon

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Creating a PNG file from a Windows icon by Richard Russell, February 2018 Both Windows icons and PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files support transparency - an alpha channel if you prefer - so it may be useful to convert the former to the latter. For example Android and Mac

creating_20a_20rebar_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Creating a rebar control by Richard Russell, August 2006 A rebar control acts a bit like a toolbar, but instead of being a simple bar it consists of a number of bands each of which can contain a child window. Typically the child window can itself be a

creating_20a_20shortcut

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Creating a shortcut by Richard Russell, June 2007 If you want to create a shortcut (link) to a file or a folder, you can do it using the PROCshortcut routine listed below. You would call the routine using code similar to the following: PROCshortcut("C:\Documents and Settings\RTR\Desktop\Test Shortcut.lnk", \ \ "C:\Program Files\BBC BASIC for Windows\bbcwin.exe", \ \ "C:\Program Files\BBC BASIC for Windows\Examples\", \ \ "Test…

creating_20a_20tab_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Creating a tab control by Richard Russell, November 2006 A Tab Control is similar to a Property Sheet, but it is less intelligent: that is, you have to do more of the work yourself! The advantage is that it gives you extra flexibility: for example a Property Sheet contains built-in

creating_20an_20animation_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Creating an animation control by Richard Russell, November 2009 A typical example of an animation control is the familiar 'search' animation: To create an animation control in your main window use code similar to the following: INSTALL @lib$+"WINLIB5A" ACM_OPEN = &464 ACM_PLAY = &465 WS_BORDER = &800000 hwndAnim% = FN_createwindow(@hwnd%, "SysAnimate32", "", 100, 100, \ \ 0, 0, 0, WS_BORDER, 0) SYS "S…

creating_20an_20array_20alias

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Creating an array alias by Richard Russell, June 2009, modified August 2020 If you use a simple array assignment statement to copy an array the contents are copied (that is, each element of the source array is copied into the destination array):

creating_20child_20controls_20in_20a_20loop

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Creating child controls in a loop by Richard Russell, March 2013 In Liberty BASIC 4.04 you can use the MAPHANDLE statement to, for example, reuse the same code to open multiple windows. The LB4 documentation illustrates how to open three windows using this technique:

creating_20function_20key_20macros

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Creating function key macros by Richard Russell, December 2008 In the BBC BASIC for Windows Integrated Development Environment (i.e program editor and user interface) function keys F9 to F12 have no effect, by default. The same is true of function keys

creating_20pdf_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:17+00:00

Creating PDF files by Richard Russell, October 2007 A popular method for creating a PDF (Portable Document Format) file from a Windows application is to use a 'PDF Printer Driver' (or 'Virtual Printer'). This installs like an ordinary printer but rather than outputting to paper it creates a PDF file. There are many such products including:

creating_20temporary_20files_20and_20directories

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Creating temporary files and directories by Jon Ripley, August 2007 The FNtempfile function creates and returns the name of a unique file in the current temporary directory. You should ensure that you delete this file when you no longer require it.

customising_20the_20browse_20for_20folder_20dialogue

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Customising the Browse for Folder dialogue by Richard Russell, July 2009 The main Help documentation explains how you can use the Windows API to display a Browse for Folder dialogue box, allowing the user to select a folder (directory) for some purpose. Unfortunately the basic functionality of

data_20without_20data

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Data without DATA By JGH, May-2006. It is common for programs to put commonly used data in DATA statements which are then read into a set a variables at startup. A classic example is the names of months: DIM mon$(12) RESTORE FOR mon%=1 TO 12:READ mon$(mon%):NEXT mon% DATA Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec

database_20and_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-07-06T12:42:26+00:00

Database and Files Arrays * Aliasing strings and byte arrays * Allocating arrays using the Windows API * Deconstructing arrays * Finding the SUM or MOD of a partial array * Finding the size of an array in a structure * Reading and writing arrays in files * Re-dimensioning arrays * Searching ordered lists * Using array pointers * Variable-length array in a structure Data Structures * Clearing the contents of a structure * Creating a Globally Unique Identifier * Linke…

date_20formatting_20extended_20functionality

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Date$ Formatting - Extended Functionality LBB has extended functionality when using Date$() . LBB will return the date in any format that can be constructed from the following elements, in any order, separated by '/' or '-': d Day of month as digits with no leading zero for single-digit days.

debugging_20techniques_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Debugging Techniques by Jack Kelly with valued contributions from Alyce Watson, John Fisher, and Anatoly April 2018 It is rare that a programmer writes any significant amount of code that is entirely free of errors. Often the error is very small, perhaps just one incorrect character. Or perhaps a variable that should be global. Or it could be a major error in logic. All are difficult to see and correct when immersed in the writing and reviewing of code.

deconstructing_20arrays

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Deconstructing arrays by Jon Ripley, August 2006 This article assumes that you have read the manual section 'Array storage in memory'. This article expands on the documentation and shows how to use this information in a real program. Understanding the layout and structure of arrays in memory has practical applications when dealing with arrays from assembly language and when writing code that manipulates arrays. This information can also be used to implement methods to deal with arrays in wa…

detecting_20a_20second_20instance_20of_20a_20program

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Detecting a second instance of a program by Richard Russell, July 2006 There may be situations when you need to ensure that only one copy of a program can be run at a time; an attempt to run a second copy should fail (with or without an error message being displayed). There are several ways in which this can be achieved, but the one described here is relatively simple and free from unwanted side effects; it uses the Windows

detecting_20when_20a_20menu_20is_20open

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Detecting when a menu is open by Richard Russell, December 2008 There may be circumstances when you need to detect whether a drop-down ('popup') menu is 'open', that is the menu selections are displayed. A particular example is when you have changed the mouse pointer (cursor) shape using

determining_20how_20a_20macro_20was_20run

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Determining how a macro was run by Jon Ripley, October 2007 When writing a macro it is often useful to be able to determine whether it is being run as the main program or if it has been CALLed. Making this distinction allows more flexibility when writing macros.

determining_20if_20the_20user_20is_20an_20administrator

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Determining if the user is an administrator by Richard Russell, October 2011 The code listed below reports whether the user is currently logged-in as an administrator or not: SYS "IsUserAnAdmin" TO res% IF res% THEN PRINT "The current user is an administrator" ELSE PRINT "The current user is not an administrator" ENDIF

detokeniser

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:18+00:00

Detokeniser by Jon Ripley, January 2008, May 2011 The FNdetokenise function listed below accepts a string containing either a tokenised program line or tokenised code and returns a string containing detokenised code: DEF FNdetokenise(S$) IF S$ = "" OR S$ = CHR$0+CHR$255+CHR$255 THEN ="" PRIVATE Keywd$() IF !^Keywd$()=0 THEN DIM Keywd$(160) Keywd$() = "AND","DIV","EOR","MOD","OR","ERROR","LINE","OFF",\ \"STEP","SPC","TAB(","ELSE","…

direct_20screen_20memory_20access

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Direct screen memory access by Richard Russell, March 2007 Normally, your BASIC program doesn't have direct access to its screen memory, i.e. the contents of the bitmap holding the text and graphics output from the program. The only ways to write to that bitmap are by using BASIC statements and commands (e.g.

direct3d_2011_20tutorials

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Direct3D 11 Tutorials by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in these tutorials requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This set of tutorials is very closely based on Microsoft's Direct3D 11 tutorials but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

disabling_20_27sticky_20key_27_20action_20of_20shift

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Disabling 'sticky key' action of Shift by Richard Russell, October 2008 By default, pressing the Shift key five times activates the Windows StickyKeys accessibility feature. Whilst this can be useful for people with certain disabilities, it can be irritating if you use BBC BASIC's

disabling_20the_20close_20button

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Disabling the close button by Richard Russell, August 2008 It is easy enough to make the close button (in the top-right corner of the window) ineffective, by executing the following statement: ON CLOSE RETURN This results in the button being ignored. However there may be occasions when you actually want to disable the close button, and indicate that it is disabled by it being 'greyed out'. You can do that as follows:

discovering_20how_20a_20program_20was_20run

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Discovering how a program was run by Jon Ripley, May 2006 In some cases it is important to know what environment your program is running in so you can make different choices to suit the environment. There are three methods to run a BBC BASIC program:

discovering_20the_20system_20power_20status

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Discovering the system power status by Richard Russell, October 2011 The code listed below reports the current system power status, including whether the PC is operating from batteries or from the mains, the current battery status and the remaining battery life (if appropriate).

displaying_20a_20jpeg_20or_20gif_20in_20a_20picture_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Displaying a JPEG or GIF in a picture box by Richard Russell, November 2006 The main BBC BASIC for Windows documentation explains how to display a BMP image in a picture box (i.e. a static control having the SS_BITMAP style). The code it lists is as follows:

displaying_20a_20png_20or_20tiff_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Displaying a PNG or TIFF image by Richard Russell, November 2010, amended January 2012 BBC BASIC for Windows provides the *DISPLAY command to display on the screen an image contained in a BMP file, and the main Help documentation describes how to display a GIF or JPEG image. If you want to display a

displaying_20a_20tooltip_20on_20demand_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Displaying a tooltip on demand (LBB) by Richard Russell, August 2012 As a rule, a tooltip is displayed when the mouse moves into the tool's rectangle and stays there for a specified minimum period of time; typically this is when the user 'hovers' the mouse over a control or other region of interest. However it is also possible to force a tooltip to display 'on demand', under the control of your program.

displaying_20a_20tooltip_20on_20demand

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Displaying a tooltip on demand by Richard Russell, August 2012 As a rule, a tooltip is displayed when the mouse moves into the tool's rectangle and stays there for a specified minimum period of time; typically this is when the user 'hovers' the mouse over a control or other region of interest. However it is also possible to force a tooltip to display 'on demand', under the control of your program.

displaying_20an_20icon_20on_20a_20pushbutton

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Displaying an icon on a pushbutton by Richard Russell, March 2016 The main BBC BASIC for Windows help documentation tells you how to display a BMP image on a pushbutton but not how to display an icon (ICO file) instead. The simple code below shows how to do that: BM_SETIMAGE = &F7 BS_ICON = 64 IMAGE_ICON = 1 LR_LOADFROMFILE = 16 INSTALL @lib$+"WINLIB5" ICOfile$ = @lib$+"..\bbchelp.ico" hButton = FN_button("", 100, 100, 96, 96, FN_se…

displaying_20animated_20gifs

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Displaying animated GIFs by Richard Russell, November 2007 amended January 2022 The easiest way of displaying an animated GIF is to use the imglib libraries supplied with BBC BASIC for Windows and BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0; see the relevant documentation. The rest of this article describes alternative methods that may be used in

displaying_20inverse_20video

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Displaying inverse video Inverse video is a display mode where text and graphics on a display are presented as a negative of their original appearance. Inverse Video Text by Jon Ripley, May 2006 To read the current foreground and background text colours use the following code:

displaying_20program_20errors_20in_20a_20message_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Displaying program errors in a message box by Jon Ripley, July 2006 To display a program error in a message box use code similar to the following: ON ERROR SYS "MessageBox", @hwnd%, REPORT$ + " at line " + STR$ERL, "Error", 48:QUIT If you replace

displaying_20unicode_20text_20in_20a_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Displaying Unicode text in a control by Richard Russell, February 2012 Versions 1.80 and later of LB Booster provide built-in support to output Unicode text to the mainwin, and to the printer using LPRINT, but not to GUI controls. In the case of controls other than a TEXTEDITOR it is quite easy to support Unicode output using a little

displaying_20unicode_20text_20in_20a_20graphicbox

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Displaying Unicode text in a graphicbox by Richard Russell, March 2015 LB Booster provides built-in support to output Unicode text to the mainwin, and to the printer using LPRINT, but not to GUI controls. In the case of controls other than a TEXTEDITOR it is quite easy to support Unicode output using a little

distributing_20crunched_20libraries

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

Distributing crunched libraries by Richard Russell, March 2010 The libraries distributed with BBC BASIC for Windows are supplied in their original source form. This is mainly because an experienced BBC BASIC programmer might want to examine their code for ideas, or base new libraries on them. Admittedly, most of the supplied libraries contain 'terse' code, and are only minimally commented (mainly for reasons of speed and so they will fit in the trial version), but they are at least editable a…

dlls_20compatible_20with_20lbb

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-07T18:45:45+00:00

DLLs compatible with LBB LB Booster should be fully compatible with the following standard Windows DLLs. They have pre-assigned handles so do not need to be explicitly opened or closed in your programs: DLL handle ADVAPI32.DLL #advapi32 COMCTL32.DLL

docking_20a_20dialogue_20box_20on_20the_20toolbar

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Docking a dialogue box on the toolbar by Richard Russell, December 2006 DO NOT USE THE CODE IN THIS ARTICLE, IT HAS BEEN REPORTED THAT IT CAN MAKE YOUR PROGRAM UNSTABLE A normal dialogue box is free to be moved anywhere on the desktop. This article describes how to 'dock' a dialogue box to a program's toolbar and fix it there so it tracks window movements etc.

downloading_20a_20file_20from_20a_20url

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Downloading a file from a URL by Richard Russell, August 2007; amended July 2009 The simplest method of downloading a file (e.g. a web page) from an internet URL is to use the URLDownloadToFile API function as described in the main documentation. The following program segment illustrates how to do that:

drawing_20a_20transparent_20bitmap

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Drawing a Transparent Bitmap Introduction by Richard Russell The commands built into BBC BASIC for Windows for displaying a bitmap image (*DISPLAY and *MDISPLAY) can only display an opaque image, i.e. anything 'underneath' the image will be obliterated. You may sometimes want to display a

drawing_20outside_20the_20window

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Drawing outside the window by Richard Russell, December 2006 When you initialise BBC BASIC's output window using MODE or VDU 23,22 not only is the window's size set to the appropriate dimensions but the graphics viewport is also initialised to the same area. This is done for reasons of efficiency, so BB4W doesn't waste time drawing graphics outside of the window where they cannot be seen. This is particularly true of statements like

drawing_20text_20with_20a_20translucent_20dropshadow

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Drawing text with a translucent dropshadow by Richard Russell, October 2007 It is straightforward to draw text with an opaque dropshadow: you simply draw the 'shadow' text first (probably in a suitable shade of grey) then draw the foreground text on top, offset by a few pixels, in whatever colour you want. The effect can be acceptable, particularly when drawn on a uniformly-coloured background, but isn't very realistic when drawn over something like a picture. Ideally in that case you should …

drawing_rounded_rectangles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Drawing rounded rectangles by Richard Russell, January 2021 Neither BBC BASIC for Windows nor BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 supports drawing anti-aliased rounded rectangles (that is, boxes with radiused corners). Fortunately it is easy enough to decompose that shape into simpler components (straight lines and 90° arcs) which can be drawn using the supplied anti-aliased graphics libraries (

drawing_to_an_in-memory_bitmap_texture

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Drawing to an in-memory bitmap/texture by Richard Russell, June 2020 By default, text and graphics output is displayed in the 'main' (output) window. The supplied MULTIWIN library (available for both BBC BASIC for Windows and BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0

effect_20of_20get_20and_20input_20on_20event_20handling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Effect of GET and INPUT on event handling by Jon Ripley and Richard Russell, April 2007 The functions GET and GET$, and the statement INPUT, can adversely affect the handling of events (e.g. ON CLOSE, ON MOUSE etc.) by your program. This is because whilst they are waiting for user input no events will be processed.

effect_20of_20menu_20bar_20on_20window_20size

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Effect of menu bar on window size by Richard Russell, May 2006 Adding a menu bar to your output window has the effect of reducing the size of the 'client area', i.e. the area available for your program's output. So, assuming for example that your program selects

ejecting_20a_20removable_20disk

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:12+00:00

Ejecting a removable disk by Richard Russell, November 2007 The routine listed below will eject a disk (if any) in the specified drive; it requires Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista. It should be called using code similar to the following:

embedding_20resources_20in_20different_20folders

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Embedding resources in different folders by Richard Russell, July 2007 Background BBC BASIC for Windows defines two system variables @dir$ and @lib$ which contain the paths to two important directories; @dir$ is the directory containing the program itself (whether a BASIC program file, .BBC or .BAS, or a 'compiled' executable, .EXE) and

emulating_20the_20c_20assignment_20function

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Emulating the C assignment function by Richard Russell, July 2009 In the C programming language, an assignment operation such as: variable = expression can be used either as a statement or as a function. When used as a function, it returns the new value of the variable. Whilst at first sight this might not seem very useful, it is particularly convenient in the case of a

enabling_20word-wrap_20in_20a_20texteditor_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Enabling word-wrap in a texteditor (LBB) by Richard Russell, February 2016 The Liberty BASIC texteditor control does not support word-wrap at all, but in LB Booster word-wrapping may be enabled using stylebits: texteditor #w.te, 10, 10, 280, 280 stylebits #w.te, 0, _ES_AUTOHSCROLL or _WS_HSCROLL, 0, 0 open "Wordwrap test" for window as #w #w.te "!font Arial 0 28" #w.te "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog's tail." wait

encoding_20text_20into_20base64

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:09+00:00

Encoding Text into Base64 Encoding Text into Base64 It can be useful to encode a text string into a base 64 representation. For example when passing usernames and passwords to an SMTP server the request and response are both done using base 64. The encoding is done by taking 3

enumerating_20serial_20ports

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Enumerating serial ports by Richard Russell, May 2014 The program below uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to enumerate the serial I/O ports (if any): INSTALL @lib$+"COMLIB" PROC_cominitlcid(1033) ON CLOSE PROCcleanup : QUIT ON ERROR PROCcleanup : SYS "MessageBox", @hwnd%, REPORT$, 0, 0 : END objSWbemLocator% = FN_createobject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator") objWMIService% = FN_getobject(objSWbemLocator%, \ \ …

enumerating_20the_20installed_20printers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Enumerating the installed printers by Richard Russell, February 2014 The following program will list the installed printers: SYS "LoadLibrary", "WINSPOOL.DRV" TO winspool% SYS "GetProcAddress", winspool%, "EnumPrintersA" TO EnumPrinters% SYS EnumPrinters%, 6, 0, 4, 0, 0, ^needed%, ^returned% DIM buffer% needed% SYS EnumPrinters%, 6, 0, 4, buffer%, needed%, ^needed%, ^returned% IF returned% = 0 PRINT "No printers" : END FOR p% = 0 TO…

example_20property_20sheet

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Example property sheet by Richard Russell, October 2015 The main BBC BASIC for Windows Help documentation contains information on how to create a Property Sheet, but no demonstration program is supplied. For those who prefer to adapt an existing program rather than to write their own from scratch, here is an example of a property sheet in action.

exceeding_20the_20limit_20of_208_20open_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Exceeding the limit of 8 open files by Richard Russell, October 2015 Normally only a maximum of eight files may be open simultaneously in BBC BASIC for Windows; an attempt to open a ninth file will result in the Too many open files error (ERR = 192). It is possible to work around this limitation by opening-and-closing the file for each transaction (so that only one file is open at a time), for example to write a record to a file one might do:

extracting_20a_20file_27s_20thumbnail

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Extracting a file's thumbnail by Richard Russell, July 2007 Several file types can have associated thumbnail images, which are displayed (for example) in Windows Explorer's Thumbnails view. Examples of such file types are image files (e.g. BMP, GIF, JPEG), PowerPoint files, Word and Excel files (when the

faking_20keyboard_20input

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

Faking keyboard input by Richard Russell, September 2007 In special circumstances you may wish to 'automate' another application, that is to control it from your BASIC program rather then via user input (e.g. from the keyboard). Ideally you would do that through an official 'COM automation' interface, such as is provided by several Microsoft applications; the main

fast_variables

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:16+00:00

Fast variables by Richard Russell, June 2020 A 'fast' variable is stored as a token in the range &18 to &1F, followed by two bytes to be interpreted as a 16-bit number (little-endian). This number indexes a 4-byte 'slot' pre-allocated at the start of the heap; some variables use more than one slot. So to find the memory address of a fast variable multiply the 16-bit index by 4 and add it to LOMEM. Some slots are never used and are 'wasted', because their index would include a disallowed byte.

fetching_20a_20secure_20web_20page

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-23T15:13:39+00:00

Fetching a secure web page by Richard Russell, July 2009, updated July 2018 and March 2025 The procedure listed below fetches the contents of a web resource to a specified file; it uses the code listed in the BBC BASIC for Windows manual (it also runs in

filenames_20containing_20spaces

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Filenames containing spaces by Richard Russell, May 2006 You don't need to take any special precautions when using OPENIN, OPENOUT or OPENUP to access files whose names (or paths) contain one or more spaces: filename$ = "Filename containing spaces" file% = OPENIN(filename$) file% = OPENUP(filename$) file% = OPENOUT(filename$)

finding_20drive_20serial_20numbers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding drive serial numbers by Richard Russell, October 2015 Disk drives (including internal and external hard drives, USB flash drives etc.) have two kinds of serial number. One is the volume serial number which is created when the drive is formatted, and can later be changed, and the other is the

finding_20the_20application_20associated_20with_20an_20extension

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding the application associated with an extension by J.G.Harston, August 2008 The application associated with a particular file extension (actually, the command used to launch or open a file) is stored in the system registry. This associated command can be found with the following code:

finding_20the_20bbc_20basic_20installation_20directory

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding the BBC BASIC installation directory by Jon Ripley, May 2006, rewritten February 2008 To find the installation directory of BBC BASIC for Windows use the following FN_ReadBB4WInstallPath function which takes no parameters and returns a path to where BBC BASIC is installed or an empty string if no installation is found:

finding_20the_20cpu_20usage

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding the CPU usage by Richard Russell, October 2011 The code listed below reports, once per second, the current total CPU usage: *FLOAT 64 DIM IdleTime{l%,h%}, KernelTime{l%,h%}, UserTime{l%,h%} idletime = 0 kerneltime = 0 usertime = 0 REPEAT WAIT 100 SYS "GetSystemTimes", IdleTime{}, KernelTime{}, UserTime{} oldidletime = idletime oldkerneltime = kerneltime oldusertime = usertime …

finding_20the_20current_20user_20name

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding the current user name by Richard Russell, October 2010 To find the user name for the current thread use this function: DEF FNusername LOCAL name%, size% size% = 255 DIM name% LOCAL size% SYS "GetUserName", name%, ^size% = $$name%

finding_20the_20default_20national_20language

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding the default national language by Richard Russell, March 2014 You can discover the national language for which your PC is configured by default as follows: SYS "GetSystemDefaultLCID" TO lcid% PRINT ~lcid% The hexadecimal code displayed can be related to the language according to

finding_20the_20free_20space_20on_20a_20disk

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:08+00:00

Finding the free space on a disk by Richard Russell, October 2006 If you need to find out the amount of free space on a disk drive you can do that quite easily: drive$ = "C:\" SYS "GetDiskFreeSpace", drive$, ^SpC%, ^BpS%, ^Free%, ^Total% gbytes_total = SpC% * BpS% * Total% / 2^30 gbytes_free = SpC% * BpS% * Free% / 2^30

finding_20the_20host_20ip_20address

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the host IP address by Richard Russell, May 2007 It is easy to discover the host PC's network name using the FN_gethostname function in the SOCKLIB library, but there is no equivalent function for discovering its IP (Internet Protocol) address. However that can easily be achieved using a little code:

finding_20the_20iso_20week_20number

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the ISO week number by Richard Russell, November 2015 The code listed below finds the ISO week number (or year and week) corresponding to a given date: INSTALL @lib$+"DATELIB" PRINT FN_ISOweek(1,1,2005) PRINT FN_ISOweek(2,1,2005) PRINT FN_ISOweek(31,12,2005) PRINT FN_ISOweek(31,12,2006) PRINT FN_ISOweek(1,1,2007) PRINT FN_ISOweek(30,12,2007) PRINT FN_ISOweek(31,12,2007) PRINT FN_ISOweek(1,1,2008) PRINT …

finding_20the_20last_20character_20read_20from_20a_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the last character read from a file by Richard Russell, January 2012 Occasionally you may want to find out what was the last character read from a file (without the overhead of backspacing the file pointer and reading it again). For example, if you read a string from a file using

finding_20the_20mac_20address

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the MAC address by Richard Russell, May 2007 This article lists no fewer than five different methods of discovering the MAC address (Media Access Control address or physical address) of one or more network adaptors in the host system. The MAC address can be useful, amongst other things, as a unique identifier of the host PC. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses.

finding_20the_20mime_20type_20of_20a_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the MIME type of a file by Jon Ripley, May 2007 To read the MIME type of a file call “FN_GetMIMEType” passing it a file extension, for example: PRINT "The MIME type of a .html file is ";FN_GetMIMEType("html") The code for

finding_20the_20modulus_20of_20part_20of_20an_20array

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the modulus of part of an array by Richard Russell, October 2013 The MOD() function, when applied to an array, returns the square-root of the sum of the squares of the elements of the array (the so-called modulus). It may occasionally be useful to discover the modulus of only

finding_20the_20parity_20of_20a_20number

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the parity of a number by Richard Russell, March 2014 The parity of an integer is determined by the number of set (i.e. 1) bits in its binary representation. If there are an even number of set bits the parity is even and if there are an odd number of set bits the parity is

finding_20the_20partial_20sum_20of_20an_20array

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the partial sum of an array by Richard Russell, July 2015 The SUM() function returns the sum of all the elements in a numeric array, and it is much faster than summing the elements yourself in a loop. However you have no control over how many elements are summed: it is always the entire array. To find the sum of the first

finding_20the_20size_20of_20an_20array_20in_20a_20structure

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the size of an array in a structure by Richard Russell, January 2011 You can discover the size (i.e. the number of dimensions and the maximum subscript for each dimension) of a regular array using the DIM function. For example consider an array declared as follows:

finding_20the_20version_20number

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding the version number by Richard Russell, January 2010 You can discover the version number of BBC BASIC for Windows or BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 using the following procedure: DEF FNversion LOCAL F%, V$ F% = OPENOUT(@tmp$+"version.txt") OSCLI "OUTPUT "+STR$F% *HELP *OUTPUT 0 PTR #F% = 0 INPUT #F%,V$ CLOSE #F% = RIGHT$(V$,5)

finding_20which_20items_20are_20selected_20in_20a_20list_20view

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding which items are selected in a List View by Richard Russell, September 2010 A significant difference between a List View and a List Box is that the former allows you to select multiple items whereas the latter only allows you to select a single

finding_20which_20window_20has_20input_20focus

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:07+00:00

Finding which window has input focus by Richard Russell, April 2010 The WINLIB5 (and WINLIB5A) libaries contain the PROC_setfocus routine which allows you to set the input focus to a specified child window (or the main output window). However, there is no related function to return the handle of the window which currently has input focus.

finding_image_file_dimensions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Finding image file dimensions by Richard Russell, October 2018 The routines listed below will return the image dimensions (width and height, in pixels) of the most common image file formats (BMP, JPG, PNG and GIF). If the file cannot be opened, the width and height parameters will be returned unchanged; if necessary this may be detected by initialising them to zero and checking their values on return.

finding_sum_mod_partial_array

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Finding the SUM or MOD of a partial array by Richard Russell, January 2023 The SUM() and MOD() functions return the sum and modulus (square-root of the sum of the squares) respectively of a numeric array, and they are much faster than performing the calculations yourself in a loop. However you have no control over which elements are operated on: it is always the entire array (remember that in BBC BASIC array indices are zero-based).

fitting_20programs_20in_20the_20demo_20version

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Fitting programs in the demo version by Richard Russell, June 2007 amended January 2014 This article applies to BBC BASIC for Windows version 5.95a or later only The trial (evaluation) version of BBC BASIC for Windows provides, by default, 16 Kbytes (16384 bytes)

fixing_20a_20bad_20library_20error

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Fixing a Bad library error by Jon Ripley, August 2006 If you get a “Bad library” error when installing a library or calling a program file then it is likely that the error occurred because the file in question is not a tokenised BBC BASIC for Windows

flushing_20file_20buffers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Flushing file buffers by Richard Russell, June 2010 When you write to a sequential data file using PRINT# or BPUT# the data is buffered by BBC BASIC before being output to Windows (typically for storage on disk). This is done for reasons of performance, because transferring data in blocks is more efficient than transferring it one byte at a time. A similar process occurs when you are reading from a file.

forcing_20a_20variable_20to_20exist

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Forcing a variable to exist by Richard Russell, May 2006 Programs frequently need to contain a cleanup routine which gets called before the program quits. Such a routine may close files, remove open dialogue boxes, free Windows resources that have been allocated (e.g. memory or graphics objects) etc. So the routine will typically include code similar to the following:

format

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:20+00:00

Format by JGH, June 2006 BBC BASIC programs are stored in a tokenised format. Most of the tokens used by different versions of BBC BASIC are the same, but extended tokens are different, and different versions have different line headers. The exception is

fscale

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

REM Expo .... Rev 2.0 REM A J Tooth // October 2015 *FLOAT64 MODE 14 : OFF : COLOUR 132,50,0,0 : COLOUR 132 : CLS INPUT TAB(5,5);"Enter a value; ";X ResB = EXP(X) PRINT TAB(5,5);"BBC version of EXP(";X;")=";ResB Res = FN_EXP(1.0*X) PRINT TAB(5,10);"ASM version of EXP(";X;")= ";Res a$=GET$ QUIT REM End of Program =============================================== REM =======================================================…

generating_20pseudo-random_20numbers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Generating pseudo-random numbers by Richard Russell, August 2006 BBC BASIC supplies pseudo-random numbers in three formats: * RND supplies a pseudo-random 32-bit integer * RND(N) supplies a pseudo-random positive integer in the range 1 to N

getting_20connected_20and_20online

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:06+00:00

Getting Connected and Online by Malcolm Marten, August 2007 The simple method of downloading a web page "Downloading a file from a URL" can fail if you are not connected or not online. While this sounds obvious, the nature of the Internet being a connected web makes this a little more complicated than you might think. The Windows environment has the concept of

getting_20the_20current_20line_20number

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Getting the current line number by Jon Ripley, Richard Russell, January 2012 The FN_linenumber(!384) function returns the line number of the currently executing line of code as demonstrated below. 12345 PRINT FN_linenumber(!384) END DEF FN_linenumber(E%) LOCAL p%% : p%% = PAGE WHILE ?p%% AND p%% + ?p%% < (E% + PAGE - !340) p%% += ?p%% : ENDWHILE = (p%%?2*256+p%%?1)

getting_20the_20current_20voice

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Getting the current voice by Richard Russell, March 2013 This article is specific to the SAPI5 speech system, typically installed on Windows 2000, XP and later The code below can be used to discover the currently selected voice name: voice$ = FN_getvaluestr(tts%, "Voice.GetDescription")

getting_20the_20user_20idle_20time

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Getting the User Idle time by Richard Russell, October 2011 The User Idle time is the time since the user last interacted with the PC, for example by pressing a key or moving the mouse. It's useful for things like determining when to display a screensaver.

graphics_20and_20games

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Graphics and Games Game programming * Accessing two joysticks General graphics * Capturing the contents of a window * Centering the graphics origin * Converting graphics coordinates * Creating a PNG file from a Windows icon * Direct screen memory access * Displaying a PNG or TIFF image * Displaying animated GIFs * Displaying inverse video * Drawing rounded rectangles * Drawing a Transparent Bitmap * Drawing text with a translucent dropshadow * Drawing outside the wi…

guide_20to_20writing_20libraries

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

Guide to writing libraries by Richard Russell, March 2010 Note: This article specifically applies to re-usable code libraries. Another use of the INSTALL statement is as a means of splitting a large program into modules. Several of the guidelines listed below

handling_20unsigned_2032-bit_20values

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Handling unsigned 32-bit values by Richard Russell, October 2006 BBC BASIC's 32-bit integers are all signed, i.e. they represent values between -2147483648 (&80000000) and +2147483647 (&7FFFFFFF); values outside this range can only be represented by floating-point numbers. Occasionally you may want to treat a 32-bit integer as if it was unsigned, i.e. representing a value between zero (&00000000) and +4294967295 (&FFFFFFFF), for example this could be necessary when interpreting a UINT value r…

handling_20very_20large_20numbers_20without_20using_20scientific_20notation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Handling very large numbers without using scientific notation BB4W, like most programming languages, can handle very large numbers - but only in floating-point notation. This is fine for normal usage, but what if you want to investigate the digits of such a number? For instance, you may be looking for patterns in the digits such as a sequence or groupings of similar digits (there are still folk out there looking for patterns in pi, out at the millionth decimal place!).

hiding_20a_20window_20from_20a_20screenshot

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Hiding a window from a screenshot by Richard Russell, November 2014 Suppose your program displays something which you would prefer the user not to be able to capture in a screenshot (e.g. using the Print Screen key). You can do that as follows: WDA_MONITOR = 1 SYS "SetWindowDisplayAffinity", @hwnd%, WDA_MONITOR

hiding_20confidential_20data

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

Hiding confidential data by Richard Russell, March 2007 BBC BASIC for Windows provides a convenient method of incorporating resource files within a 'compiled' executable, using the Embedded files feature of the Compile utility (or the “REM!Embed

high_20quality_20hardcopy_20output_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

High quality hardcopy output (LBB) by Richard Russell, October 2015 The article Improving the print quality describes one way of improving the quality of hardcopy output from LBB. An alternative approach is to use a large (normally) invisible window, of a sufficient size to achieve the desired quality, and then to send it to the printer using the

high_20quality_20random_20number_20generation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

High Quality Random Number Generation by Richard Russell, March 2010 Listed below are BBC BASIC implementations of two high performance Pseudo Random Number Generators: the WELL512A and WELL1024A algorithms developed in 2006 (see this Wikipedia article). They have state sizes of 512 bits and 1024 bits, and therefore sequence lengths of 2^512-1 and 2^1024-1, respectively. They both return 32-bit signed integer values, but these can easily be converted to other formats, for example using the co…

home

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:13+00:00

home ---------- This Wiki contains a set of technical articles for BBC BASIC for Windows programmers, in an easy-to-use form. You can simply browse the contents using the Navigation bar on the left, or search for a word or phrase by typing it into the

how_20to_20avoid_20gotos

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

How to avoid GOTOs by Richard Russell, November 2006, revised June 2007 and October 2011 BBC BASIC includes the GOTO statement, but GOTOs are generally considered to be a bad thing. I won't repeat the arguments for avoiding GOTOs here: they are well explained in the

how_20to_20display_20a_20hex_20dump_20of_20memory_20contents

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

How to display a hex dump of memory contents by Jon Ripley, May 2011 It is useful sometimes to be able to list the contents of a block of memory to examine it. This may be to help debug a problem, examine binary data in memory or one of many other uses.

hyperbolic_functions_lbb

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

by Richard Russell, April 2018 Liberty BASIC doesn't include the hyperbolic trig functions (sinh, cosh, tanh etc.) as a built-in feature, but they can easily be synthesised as user-defined functions as follows: function sinh(x) sinh = (exp(x) - exp(-x)) / 2 end function function cosh(x) cosh = (exp(x) + exp(-x)) / 2 end function function tanh(x) tanh = (exp(x) - exp(-x)) / (exp(x) + exp(-x)) end function function coth(x) coth = (exp(x) + exp(-x)) / (exp(x) - exp(-x)) end fu…

hyperbolic_functions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

by Richard Russell, April 2018 BBC BASIC doesn't include the hyperbolic trig functions (sinh, cosh, tanh etc.) as a built-in feature, but they can easily be synthesised as user-defined functions as follows: DEF FNsinh(x) = (EXP(x) - EXP(-x)) / 2 DEF FNcosh(x) = (EXP(x) + EXP(-x)) / 2 DEF FNtanh(x) = (EXP(x) - EXP(-x)) / (EXP(x) + EXP(-x)) DEF FNcoth(x) = (EXP(x) + EXP(-x)) / (EXP(x) - EXP(-x)) DEF FNsech(x) = 2 / (EXP(x) + EXP(-x)) DEF FNcsch(x) = 2 / (EXP(…

hyperlinks_20in_20text_20boxes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Hyperlinks in text boxes by Richard Russell, January 2007 The code in this article is not applicable to Windows 9x, Windows Me or Windows NT4. On occasion you may want to incorporate clickable hyperlinks in some text displayed in a dialogue box or elsewhere. For example you may want to incorporate a web or email address in a page of help text. One way of doing that would be to write the text in

improving_20the_20print_20quality

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

Improving the print quality by Richard Russell, February 2014 (see also High quality hardcopy output (LBB)) LB Booster uses a conventional double-buffered method of outputting graphics: objects, images, text etc. are drawn to a 'memory' bitmap which is then blitted to the screen when required. This has the advantage that graphics automatically 'stick', that is they are redrawn when a window is restored or uncovered, without any extra effort by the programmer.

incorporating_20bookmarks_20in_20a_20program

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Incorporating bookmarks in a program by Richard Russell and Michael Hutton, July 2009 The right-click context menu in the BBC BASIC for Windows IDE allows you to navigate around your program quickly and easily, by providing a means to 'jump' to the beginning of a specified function or procedure with just a couple of mouse clicks. However there may be circumstances when you would like to jump not to the beginning of a

inputting_20real-time_20audio

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-04-19T17:43:41+00:00

Inputting real-time audio Most PCs provide the capability of inputting audio, typically either from a microphone or from a line-level input. This article describes how a BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 or BBC BASIC for Windows program can read and process audio data from this source in real-time (i.e. without it having to be recorded to a file first).

inserting_20characters_20into_20the_20keyboard_20buffer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

Inserting characters into the keyboard buffer by Richard Russell, July 2006 On the BBC Microcomputer and some other Acorn computers you could insert a character into the keyboard buffer using the *FX 138 command. For example the following code would insert the character

installing_20both_20demo_20and_20full_20versions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

Installing both demo and full versions by Richard Russell, May 2007 If you want to write programs which will run with the free demo (evaluation) version of BBC BASIC for Windows you may well want to have easy access to that version on your desktop. At the same time you probably won't want to lose convenient access to the full version. Installing both versions, so that each is accessible via its own desktop shortcut, is quite straightforward and can be achieved as follows:

installing_20under_20wine

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Installing under wine by Jon Ripley, June 2007 This article is written with Ubuntu, Kubuntu and other modern versions of Debian in mind. Download and installation information for other distributions is available download area of the wine web site. Install Wine To install wine open a command shell by running

interpreter_20internal_20variables

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-10-21T20:02:33+00:00

Interpreter internal variables by Richard Russell, June 2009 The table below lists the addresses and purposes of a number of memory locations used internally by the BBC BASIC for Windows interpreter. Only very rarely will a BASIC programmer be interested in these values, and only experienced programmers with a good understanding of the inner workings of the interpreter should attempt to use them. It will hardly ever be required to write to these locations, and doing so without a full understa…

interrogating_20the_20audio_20mixer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Interrogating the audio mixer by Richard Russell, June 2010 Note: On Windows Vista and Windows 7 each running application has its own independent audio mixer. The code listed here will work correctly, but the mixer interrogated is that for the specific application.

islamic_20calendar_20conversion_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Islamic calendar conversion (LBB) by Richard Russell, August 2015 The code below shows how to convert between Western (Gregorian) and Islamic (Hijri) dates; it requires Windows Vista or later: CAL.HIJRI = 6 global CAL.HIJRI struct SYSTEMTIME, wYear as word, wMonth as word, _ wDayOfWeek as word, wDay as word, wHour as word, _ wMinute as word, wSecond as word, wMilliseconds as word struct CALDATETIME, CalId as long, Era as long, _ Year as lo…

lambdas_anonymous_functions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Lambdas (anonymous functions) by Richard Russell, March 2022 BBC BASIC does not 'officially' support lambdas (anonymous functions), in that the language itself does not incorporate that concept. But as is so often the case the functionality can quite easily be synthesised from lower-level operations.

large_20fonts_20and_20the_20text_20cursor

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Large fonts and the text cursor by Richard Russell, December 2007 BBC BASIC for Windows normally displays a text cursor (caret), by default consisting of a flashing underscore, the main purpose of which is to indicate to the user where a character typed at the keyboard will appear (for example when entering information in response to an

lb_20booster

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:14+00:00

LB Booster ---------- This Wiki contains a set of technical articles for Liberty BASIC and Just BASIC programmers using LB Booster (LBB) to develop and/or compile their applications. You can simply browse the contents using the Contents list below, or search for a word or phrase by typing it into the

libraries

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

Libraries What is a library and why are libraries important? * Library (Wikipedia) * Code reuse (Wikipedia) Writing Libraries * Checking if a library is INSTALLed * Commenting library code * Distributing crunched libraries * Guide to writing libraries * Fixing a 'Bad library' error * Preventing a library from being run * Using DATA statements in libraries Supplied Libraries * ARRAYLIB - Array and matrix functions * ASMLIB - Assembler extensions (CMOV and SSE) * ASM…

limiting_20the_20size_20of_20a_20window

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:05+00:00

Limiting the size of a window by Richard Russell, October 2007 Normally windows are either fully resizable by the user (by dragging a corner or edge), which is the default, or are a fixed size (see the Help documentation under Fixing the window size). However, occasionally you may want to allow the user to resize the window, but only within certain limits. You can do that by handling the

linked_20lists_20using_20structures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Linked lists using structures by Richard Russell, May 2006 Structures provide a convenient means to create and manipulate linked lists, because they allow the content of each node in the list to be clearly described. I will illustrate the steps required to create, search and read a linked list of structures using the example of an

list_20view_20with_20header_20tooltips

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

List View with header tooltips by Richard Russell, April 2011 The article List View with tooltips shows how to add tooltips to the main body of a List View control. Occasionally you may instead want to add tooltips to the column headers; the program listed below shows one way of achieving that. Basically it differs from the other program only in using the Header Control handle

list_20view_20with_20tooltips

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:04+00:00

List View with tooltips by Richard Russell, April 2011 A List View control has built-in support for tooltips, but this feature requires your program to respond to the LVN_EX_INFOTIP notification, and in BBC BASIC for Windows that is only possible using assembler code.

listing_20available_20voices

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Listing available voices by Richard Russell, October 2008 The supplied example program SPEAK.BBC provides the capability of choosing the 'voice' to be used (for example Microsoft Sam or Microsoft Mary), however you need to know in advance which voices are available; if you select one which isn't available it won't work. This is a particular problem given that the available voices may differ between versions of Windows, for example Windows Vista may only have

listing_20drives_20and_20types

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Listing drives and types by Michael Hicks, May 2007 The Microsoft Windows API function “GetLogicalDriveStrings” enables a user to determine what drives are connected to a computer. The function “GetDriveType” enables the user to determine the type of the drive. The following is an example of the use of these functions.

listing_20files_20on_20an_20ftp_20server

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Listing files on an FTP server by Richard Russell, April 2013 The code below list the files on an FTP server. FTP_PORT = 21 : REM default for FTP servers _INTERNET_SERVICE_FTP = 1 OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG = 0 : REM use registry configuration OPEN_TYPE_DIRECT = 1 : REM direct to net OPEN_TYPE_PROXY = 3 : REM via named proxy OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG_WITH_NO_AUTOPROXY = 4 : REM prevent using Java SYS "LoadLibrary", "WININET.DLL" TO wininet% …

listing_20other_20windows_20and_20applications

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Listing other windows and applications By Michael Hicks, June 2007, amended by Richard Russell, March 2011 The Microsoft Windows API call “EnumWindows” enables a user to find all the windows which are open. This function requires the use of a

listing_20processes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Listing processes by Michael Hicks, June 2007 The Microsoft Windows API call “CreateToolhelp32Snapshot” takes, as its name suggests, a “snapshot” of the processes (programs) running. Each process may spawn multiple “threads”. This code lists the running processes and provides various other details of the process such as the

listing_20the_20contents_20of_20a_20directory_20_28unicode_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Listing the contents of a directory (Unicode) by Richard Russell, September 2014 See also Listing the contents of a directory The main help documentation contains the routine PROClistdirectory which lists all the files in the current directory, but it only returns ANSI filenames. If a file or directory contains a non-ANSI character (e.g. from a different alphabet) it will be returned as a question mark. If you want to see these names with their true characters you can use the routine listed …

listing_20the_20contents_20of_20a_20directory

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Listing the contents of a directory by Richard Russell, March 2010 The main BBC BASIC for Windows documentation explains how to list the contents of a disk directory and more detail is provided in the article Scanning a Directory (Reading Directory Entries), but both require the code to be adapted to the needs of the programmer. Some dialects of BASIC provide a built-in means of extracting the contents of a directory to a string array, for example Liberty Basic's

listing_20the_20line_20an_20error_20occurs_20in_20on_20error

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Listing the line an error occurs in ON ERROR by Jon Ripley, May 2011 The detokeniser function documented on this wiki allows us to write an ON ERROR statement that lists the source code of the errant line when an error occurs. The FNErrorLine function returns the source code of the line the last error occurred in.

listing_20the_20midi_20output_20devices

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Listing the MIDI output devices by Richard Russell, May 2006 The code below will list to the screen all the available MIDI output devices: DIM moc{ \ \ wMid{l&,h&}, \ int16 \ wPid{l&,h&}, \ int16 \ vDriverVersion%, \ int32 \ szPname&(31), \ string \ wTechnology{l&,h&}, \ int16 \ wVoices{l&,h&}, \ int16 \ wNotes{l&,h&}, \ int16 \ wChannelMask{l&,h&}, \ int16 \ dwSupport% \ int32 …

loading_20a_20bbc_20micro_20style_20bitmap

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Loading a BBC Micro style bitmap Whilst BBC Basic for windows can load and display Windows style bitmaps natively, no capability is provided to load legacy screen data from BBC BASIC on other platforms unless it is first converted into a intermediate format Windows can understand.

loading_20a_20gif_20or_20jpeg_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Loading a GIF or JPEG image by Richard Russell, September 2008 The main Help documentation describes how to display a GIF or JPEG image on the main output window, but you may wish to perform other operations on an image such as accessing its data or displaying it in a static control. In such cases you are likely to need a

loading_20a_20png_20or_20tiff_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Loading a PNG or TIFF image by Richard Russell, October 2008, revised November 2010 and January 2012 The article Loading a GIF or JPEG image lists a replacement for the LoadImage API which works for JPEG, GIF, ICO, EMF and WMF images as well as for BMP images. However two common still-image formats not supported by that function are

loading_20bfont_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Loading BFont files 8×8 bitmap character definitions (called BFonts) are defined with VDU 23 and read with OSWORD 10. They can be saved as BFont files (such as these) as the sequences of eight bytes that define each character. These BFont files can be loaded to define characters, and code using VDU similar to the following is often used:

lowering_himem_proc_fn

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-07-06T12:40:08+00:00

Lowering HIMEM in a PROC/FN by Richard Russell, July 2024 One way of reserving a block of memory is to lower HIMEM, this frees up the region between the new value of HIMEM and the old value of HIMEM (-1), for example to contain assembly language code or for any other purpose. A specific advantage of this method is that the memory region thus reserved is maintained throughout the rest of the 'session', even if new programs are loaded, unless HIMEM is raised again.

making_20a_20text_20window_20read-only_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Making a Text Window read-only (LBB) by Richard Russell, September 2016 A TEXTEDITOR control (or a TEXTBOX) can easily be made read-only using the _ES_READONLY stylebit, but this doesn't work with a Text Window. You can achieve the desired result using the code below:

making_20the_20title_20bar_20opaque_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Making the title bar opaque (LBB) by Richard Russell, June 2016 In Windows Vista and Windows 7, by default, the title bar and other non-client areas of a window are translucent, and the background shows through to a degree (albeit blurred). This Aero Glass

manipulating_20filenames_20and_20pathnames

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Manipulating filenames and pathnames by Jonathan Harston Here are some code fragments and routines to manipulate various filenames and pathnames. Root directory FNf_root() extracts the root directory from the supplied path. You can't just look for a colon specifying a drive, as the program may have been run with a Uniform Naming Convention path (see

manual

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:15+00:00

Manual Help documentation * Index * Introduction and Overview * Command and Editing Window * General Information * Graphics and Colours * Keywords (ABS to ENVELOPE) * Keywords (EOF# to LOMEM) * Keywords (MID$ to PRINT) * Keywords (PRINT# to WIDTH) * VDU Emulation * Operating System Interface * Disk Files * The Assembler * Reference Information * Error Messages and Codes * Format of Data in Memory * Accessing the Windows API * Serial and Parallel I/O * Libr…

marking_20up_20bbc_20basic_20program_20code

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Marking up BBC BASIC program code By JGH, May-2006 Line continuation character (backslash) When a backslash line continuation character is used at the end of a line in a block of example code, a space must be added after it otherwise it will be interpreted as a WikiText line continuation.

marquee_20style_20progress_20bar_20_28win_20xp_20and_20above_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Marquee Style Progress Bar (Win XP and above) by Michael Hutton. May 2009 This style of progress bar is useful to show when you don't know the total time a process may take but you would like to inform the user something is going on. It requires Windows XP or above. See

memory_20usage_20monitor

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Memory usage monitor by Richard Russell, May 2007 This facility is now more conveniently available as an Add-In Utility It is sometimes useful to be able to monitor memory usage (for example heap and stack size) while a program is running. This can alert you to problems like a

minimizing_20sound_20clicks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Minimizing sound clicks by Richard Russell, January 2010 When generating music using the SOUND statement, clicks may sometimes be audible at the start and/or end of notes. These clicks are likely to be more noticeable when listening in high-quality, such as on headphones or when feeding the PC's sound output to a hi-fi system.

modulo_20integer_20arithmetic

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Modulo integer arithmetic by Richard Russell, July 2007 (Note: In later versions of BBC BASIC for Windows and BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 the SUM operator provides modulo 64-bit addition: a = b SUM c). Some implementations of BBC BASIC (for example Acorn versions) allow you to add (or subtract) two 32-bit integers in such a way that the result 'wraps around', i.e. is evaluated

moving_20the_20cursor_20in_20an_20edit_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Moving the cursor in an edit control by Richard Russell, November 2007 Windows doesn't provide an explicit method for moving the text cursor (caret) in an Edit Control, however it is easy to achieve the same result using a side effect of the EM_SETSEL

multi-column_20list_20boxes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Multi-column list boxes by Richard Russell, October 2006 If you want to display a list of items in a multiple-column format the best way is probably to use a list view control: that provides facilities for column headers, column dividers, user-adjustable column widths, sorting-by-column etc. See

multi-page_20graphics

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Multi-page graphics by Richard Russell, November 2007 Some dialects of BASIC provide the ability to have multiple pages of graphics, whereby you can draw text and/or graphics into each page and then switch 'instantly' between them. Such a facility could be used for simple animation, or simply to avoid having to redraw the screen (possibly taking a significant time) each time a particular layout is needed by your program. It also has the advantage of 'remembering' the contents of each page wit…

multiple_20file_20operations

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Multiple file operations by Richard Russell, July 2007 The Windows API function SHFileOperation is very flexible, allowing you to perform common file-system operations (delete, copy, move/rename) on one or more files. It can optionally move 'deleted' files to the Recycle Bin, display a handy progress dialogue for lengthy operations and prompt for confirmation.

non-integer_20modulo_20operation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Non-integer modulo operation by Richard Russell, November 2011 BBC BASIC, in common with several other languages (e.g. C), provides only an integer MOD operator as standard. That is, you can pass non-integer values to MOD but they will be truncated to integers before the operation is carried out. For example:

non-rectangular_20windows

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Non-rectangular windows by Richard Russell, December 2006 Ordinary windows are rectangular, with square corners (with the exception of XP-style windows which have slightly rounded top corners). However this need not be the case - windows can be any shape (within reason). This article describes how to create a shaped window.

notes_20for_20risc_20os_20users

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Notes for RISC OS users by Jon Ripley, April 2007 This page is intended to contain information that is relevant to RISC OS users using BBC BASIC for Windows. Loading BBC BASIC for Windows programs on RISC OS RISC OS has no default method of loading or saving

notes_20on_20the_20use_20of_20rnd

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Notes on the use of RND by Richard Russell, February 2010, revised May 2013 This article expands on the description of RND in the main documentation, discusses some of the limitations and pitfalls in its use, and provides some code examples. Variants of RND

number_20conversion_20in_20basic

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Number Conversion in BASIC by Jonathan Harston and Richard Russell, December 2007 The following short functions perform conversion of unsigned 32-bit integers to fixed-length strings, in hexadecimal (base 16), octal (base 8) and binary (base 2). Hexadecimal Output

object_20orientated_20programming

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Object Orientated programming by Richard Russell, April 2011 BBC BASIC isn't an Object Oriented (OO) language, but the CLASSLIB library (see Libraries) supports some of the more important features of that programming paradigm. To be specific, it provides the ability to create

object_20oriented_20programming_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Object Oriented Programming (LBB) by Richard Russell, February 2015 Version 3.00 of LB Booster (LBB) incorporates some extensions to support Object Oriented Programming (OOP). I should emphasise that the use of these extensions is entirely optional, and their presence should not impair compatibility with non-OOP Liberty BASIC programs. But please don't stop reading now: OOP has a lot to offer!

on_20screen_20keyboard

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

On Screen Keyboard by Richard Russell, September 2013 To open the Windows On Screen Keyboard from an LBB program use this code: files "c:\windows\sysnative\", "cmd.exe", info$() if val(info$(0,0)) then run "c:\windows\sysnative\cmd.exe /c osk.exe", hide else run "cmd.exe /c osk.exe", hide end if

opengl_20programming

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

OpenGL programming by Richard Russell, August 2006 Introduction This article explains how to interface with the OpenGL 3D graphics standard from BBC BASIC for Windows. It is not an OpenGL tutorial; you will need to refer to the OpenGL Reference Manual and the OpenGL Programming Guide in order to write OpenGL programs.

opening_20a_20file_20by_20dropping_20or_20clicking

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Opening a file by dropping or clicking by Richard Russell, October 2007 In Windows, some common ways of opening a file (for example a document or image file) are as follows: * Drag-and-drop the file onto the icon of the application you want to open it.

opening_20a_20file_20by_20dropping_20or_20right-clicking

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Opening a file by dropping or right-clicking by Richard Russell, October 2007 In Windows, some common ways of opening a file (for example a document or image file) are as follows: * Drag-and-drop the file onto the icon of the application you want to open it.

opening_20a_20file_20in_20a_20specified_20application

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Opening a file in a specified application by J.G.Harston, February 2008 You can open a file in an application, equivalent to double-clicking on it in a filer window, by using ShellExecute, as follows: SYS "ShellExecute", @hwnd%, 0, file$, 0, 0, 1

opening_20serial_20ports_20above_20com9

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Opening serial ports above COM9 by Richard Russell, February 2010 Since version 5.91a, BBC BASIC for Windows has fully supported serial ports above COM9; to open such a port you need only use the regular OPENUP function: port% = OPENUP("COM15: baud=9600 parity=N data=8 stop=1 dtr=on rts=on")

operating_20system

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Operating System Calling DLLs, OCXs and Object Methods * Component Object Model programming * Calling object methods using structures * Calling DLLs that return floats * Calling DLL functions that return strings * Passing floating-point values to DLLs * Using callback functions External programs * Reading the exit code of a DOS utility * Returning errors from Windows commands * Waiting for an external program to terminate Operating System * Accessing the fast SYS interf…

optimising_20integer_20division

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Optimising integer division by Richard Russell, July 2010 The integer division instructions div (unsigned) and idiv (signed) are the slowest of all the integer instructions, sometimes taking tens of clock cycles. When the divisor is a constant (that is, it is known when the code is assembled) a significantly faster execution can be achieved by using a multiplication (effectively by the reciprocal of the divisor) followed by a shift.

outputting_20arabic_20text

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Outputting Arabic text by Richard Russell, April 2012 BBC BASIC for Windows supports outputting Unicode text to the main output window or to the printer, and it also supports right-to-left printing, so in principle it ought to be able to output Arabic text. However there is a complication: in Arabic the shapes of characters (their

outputting_20real-time_20audio

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-04-19T17:40:34+00:00

Outputting real-time audio BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 by Richard Russell, April 2024 BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 provides a number of methods for outputting sounds and music, for example the SOUND statement and the audiolib library. However there may be circumstances when you want more control over the audio output, such as generating continuous tones of a particular waveform and/or frequency.

outputting_20speech_20to_20a_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Outputting speech to a file by Richard Russell, October 2008 The supplied example program SPEAK.BBC illustrates how you can use Windows' built-in speech synthesis capabilities to output speech to your PC's loudspeakers, but what if you want to create a sound file containing the speech? Fortunately the

outputting_20text_20with_20word-wrap

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:03+00:00

Outputting text with word-wrap by Richard Russell, August 2009 BBC BASIC (by default) automatically 'wraps' text that is output to the screen or the printer. If a character will not fit on the current line (or within the current text viewport) a 'new line' is generated and the character is displayed or printed at the beginning of the next line. The text viewport scrolls, or a new page is ejected from the printer, if necessary.

overcoming_20the_20memory_20limit

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Overcoming the memory limit by Richard Russell, March 2014 LB Booster's memory limit (versions 2.00 to 2.53) is similar to that of LB 4.04. For example in both cases a numeric array with 8 million elements can be successfully created but one with 10 million elements cannot (LBB reports a

palette_20animation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Palette animation by Alex Farlie and Richard Russell, July 2012 On 'hardware paletted' displays (i.e. those with 256 colours - 8 bits-per-pixel - or fewer) palette animation is possible. For example by changing the contents of the colour palette everything displayed in blue might be changed to be red, without actually needing to re-plot any graphics. Also, effects such as flashing colours can be achieved by dynamically changing the contents of the palette (this is how the BBC Micro achieves i…

passing_20array_20and_20structure_20parameters

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Passing array and structure parameters by Richard Russell, April 2009 The main BBC BASIC for Windows documentation explains that whilst scalar variables are (by default) passed to functions and procedures by value arrays and structures are passed

passing_20arrays_20to_20subs_20and_20functions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

Passing arrays to SUBs and FUNCTIONs by Richard Russell, March 2014 LB Booster provides the capability of passing an entire array as a parameter to a SUB or a FUNCTION. Here is a simple example: one(5) = 123 call test one() end sub test two() print two(5) end sub

passing_20data_20to_20assembler_20code

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Passing data to assembler code by Richard Russell, November 2006 When you incorporate assembly language code in your BBC BASIC program (either for speed or to do things which aren't possible in BASIC) you are very likely to want to pass data into, and possibly out of, the assembler code. There are a number of different ways to do this, each with its own particular advantages and disadvantages. This article discusses four alternative methods and illustrates each with a common example for ease …

passing_20floating-point_20values_20to_20dlls

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Passing floating-point values to DLLs by Richard Russell, July 2009 The majority of functions that you are likely to want to call using SYS (typically Windows API functions, or functions in third-party DLLs) will require only integer or string parameters; you can specify those straightforwardly in the

passing_20substructures_20to_20procedures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Passing substructures to procedures by Richard Russell, August 2006 As described in the main documentation you can pass entire structures to a procedure or function as follows: DIM object{name$,pos{x,y,z}} object.pos.x = 1.0 object.pos.y = 2.0 object.pos.z = 3.0 PRINT FN_distance(object{}) END DEF FN_distance(s{}) = SQR(s.pos.x^2 + s.pos.y^2 + s.pos.z^2)

pausing_20and_20resuming_20midi_20playback

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Pausing and resuming MIDI playback by Richard Russell, May 2006 BBC BASIC for Windows allows you to play a MIDI file using the *PLAY command. Whilst you can terminate playback before the song has finished by using the SOUND OFF statement, there is no built-in mechanism for

pausing_20under_20program_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Pausing under program control by Richard Russell, February 2007 When running a program from the Interactive Development Environment you can enter (or exit) paused mode using the menu selection Run... Pause, clicking the Pause button on the toolbar or pressing the

permutations

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Permutations Permutations and Derangements by Michael Hutton May 2011 You may want to find all the possible permutations of a set. The following procedure(s) will take an integer array of values (they could be numbers or pointers to strings for example) and calculate the next lexicographical permutation of the array.

playing_20a_20media_20file_20using_20direct_20show

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Playing a media file using Direct Show by Richard Russell, December 2007 Windows provides several methods for playing audio and video files. One of the simplest is the Media Control Interface (MCI) which is used by BBC BASIC for Windows to play MIDI files and is also the basis of the

playing_20an_20arpeggio

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Playing an arpeggio by Richard Russell, December 2014 If you want to play a sequence of short, rising, notes (for example from the chromatic scale) the most obvious way is something like this: ENVELOPE 1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,126,-4,0,-1,126,0 pitch = 100 FOR note = 0 TO 19 SOUND 1, 1, pitch, 2 pitch += 4 NEXT

playing_20an_20avi_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Playing an AVI file by Richard Russell, June 2013 This is a very simple, no-frills, way of playing an AVI movie file: avifile% = OPENIN("*.avi") IF avifile% = 0 THEN QUIT CLOSE #avifile% avifile$ = $$!420 PROCmci("open """ + avifile$ + """ type avivideo alias movie style popup") PROCmci("play movie wait") PROCmci("close movie") END DEF PROCmci(cmd$) LOCAL R%, S% DIM R% LOCAL 128 SYS "mciSendSt…

playing_20an_20mp3_20file_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Playing an MP3 file (LBB) by Richard Russell, January 2016 This is a very simple, no-frills, way of playing an MP3 file: mp3file$ = "C:\users\richard\music\Saint_Saens-Organ.mp3" ret$ = space$(128) + chr$(0) cmd$ = "open " + chr$(34) + mp3file$ + chr$(34) + " type mpegvideo alias music" calldll #winmm, "mciSendStringA", cmd$ as ptr, ret$ as ptr, 128 as long, 0 as long, r as long cmd$ = "play music" calldll #winmm, "mciSendStringA", cmd$ as ptr, ret$ as …

playing_20an_20mp3_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Playing an MP3 file by Richard Russell, May 2015 This is a very simple, no-frills, way of playing an MP3 music file: mp3file% = OPENIN("*.mp3") IF mp3file% = 0 THEN QUIT CLOSE #mp3file% mp3file$ = $$!420 PROCmci("open """ + mp3file$ + """ type mpegvideo alias music") PROCmci("play music") END DEF PROCmci(cmd$) LOCAL R%, S% DIM R% LOCAL 128 SYS "mciSendString", cmd$, R%, 128, 0 TO S% IF S% ERRO…

playing_20multiple_20wav_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Playing multiple WAV files by Richard Russell, February 2013 The method described in the main Help documentation for playing WAV files only allows you to play one file at a time. If you want to play two or more WAV files simultaneously a different approach must be used. The code snippet below demonstrates how to do it:

playing_20part_20of_20a_20wav_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Playing part of a WAV file by Richard Russell, April 2013 If you want to play just a section of a WAV file, you can do so using code similar to the following: SYS "mciSendString", "open """ + wavfile$ + """ alias wav1", 0, 0, 0 SYS "mciSendString", "play wav1 from 10000 to 20000", 0, 0, 0

point-in-polygon_20hit_20testing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Point-in-Polygon hit testing by Richard Russell, September 2010 A common requirement in graphics programming is to determine whether a point is inside or outside a polygon (which can be regular or irregular, concave or convex). Since any closed curve can be approximated by a polygon, given a sufficient number of vertices, this can be extended to testing whether a point is inside or outside an arbitrary boundary.

preventing_20a_20library_20from_20being_20run

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Preventing a library from being run by Jon Ripley, July 2006, January 2007 To prevent a library from being run add the following code to the start of the library after any initial comment block to generate a syntax error when a user tries to run your library:

preventing_20structure_20member_20names_20being_20crunched

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Preventing structure member names being crunched by Richard Russell, March 2010 By default structure member names are crunched on compilation (assuming the Abbreviate names option is selected), just like the names of ordinary variables, arrays etc. Normally this is perfectly OK, and is what you will want to reduce the size of the executable and make it run more quickly.

preventing_20the_20_27downloaded_20file_27_20warning

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Preventing the 'downloaded file' warning by Richard Russell, June 2009 When you attempt to run an executable file downloaded from the internet (or another computer), Windows may display a 'security warning' dialogue box requiring confirmation before the file is run. This can happen when an NTFS filesystem is in use on Windows XP (SP2 or later), Windows Vista or Windows 7:

printing_20a_20program_20containing_20unicode_20strings

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Printing a program containing Unicode strings by Richard Russell, July 2011, amended October 2012 The BBC BASIC for Windows program editor and IDE (version 5.94a and later) supports constant (quoted) strings and comments containing UTF-8 text. Therefore no special measures are required in order to print such programs, other than to ensure that the

printing_20strings

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:02+00:00

Printing strings by Jon Ripley, August 2006 This article documents three routines to output strings and VDU command sequences from assembler: * Write0 - Output a NULL terminated string * WriteN - Output a known length string * WriteS - Output an in-line string

printing_20the_20output_20from_20a_20program

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Printing the output from a program by Richard Russell, June 2007 On the old BBC Microcomputer, if you wanted to create a hardcopy record of the output from a program (which normally displays its results only on the screen) you could easily do that simply by pressing

profiler_20utility

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Profiler Utility by Michael Hutton 16/11/2009 Version 4.0 (beta) is available Profiler v4,0 (beta) Click the link and choose 'Run'. You can now start and stop the profiler from within your program by using the following code. REM!PROF_ON and REM!PROF_OFF

program_20editor_20and_20ide

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Program Editor and IDE Compiler * Preventing structure member names being crunched * Using the built-in program cruncher Editor * Incorporating bookmarks in a program * Printing a program containing Unicode strings Installation * Adding 'Create new BBC BASIC program file' to the Shell new menu * Installing both demo and full versions * Installing under wine Macros * Creating function key macros * Determining how a macro was run

prompting_20for_20admin_20rights

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:59+00:00

Prompting for admin rights by Richard Russell, December 2012 If your program needs to perform an action that requires Administrator Privileges (for example it needs to write files to one of the 'protected' areas like Program Files) it will fail if run by a standard user. A low-tech approach to this problem is to inform your users that they need to execute the program using the

pseudo-variable_20side_20effects

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:58+00:00

Pseudo-variable side effects by Richard Russell, March 2011 One thing that distinguishes the pseudo-variables (HIMEM, LOMEM, PAGE, PTR# and TIME/TIME$) from regular variables is that writing or reading a pseudo-variable may have a side effect in addition to what you would expect it to do. So for example a statement like:

putting_20an_20image_20on_20the_20clipboard

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Putting an image on the clipboard by Richard Russell, March 2012 Putting an image on the clipboard is straightforward: cx% = 0 cy% = 0 hbitmap% = FNloadimage(pic$, cx%, cy%, 0) SYS "OpenClipboard", @hwnd% SYS "EmptyClipboard" SYS "SetClipboardData", CF_BITMAP, hbitmap% SYS "CloseClipboard"

qbasic-compatible_20music

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

QBASIC-compatible music by Richard Russell, March 2014 The code below implements a QBASIC-compatible PLAY command, which allows you to play simple tunes; it makes use of the BBC BASIC SOUND and ENVELOPE statements available in LBB. The example tune is from Beethoven's

quad-precision_20multiplication

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Quad-precision multiplication by Richard Russell, December 2014 The program listed below illustrates how to multiply two (unsigned) 64-bit integers together to produce a 128-bit result. It is based on a blog post by Raymond Chen: INSTALL @lib$+"ASMLIB2" DIM crossterms 15+15, result 15+15, gap% 2047, P% 120 crossterms = (crossterms + 15) AND -16 result = (result + 15) AND -16 : REM align ON ERROR LOCAL [OPT FN_asmext : ] [ .mul …

querying_20the_20dns

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Querying the DNS by Richard Russell, October 2013 The code below allows you to query the DNS to find the IP address(es) corresponding to a specified URL: SYS "LoadLibrary", "dnsapi.dll" TO dnsapi% SYS "GetProcAddress", dnsapi%, "DnsQuery_A" TO `DnsQuery` SYS "GetProcAddress", dnsapi%, "DnsRecordListFree" TO `DnsRecordListFree` DIM dnsr{pNext%, pName%, wType{l&,h&}, wDataLength{l&,h&}, dwFlags%, \ \ dwTtl%, dwReserved%, dwData%} quer…

queueing_20event_20interrupts

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:57+00:00

Queueing event interrupts by Richard Russell, June 2006; amended June 2009 and December 2011 Consider using the EVENTLIB library instead of the code listed in this article. The ON CLOSE, ON MOUSE, ON MOVE, ON SYS and ON TIME statements interrupt your program when one of the specified events occurs. Perhaps the most obvious way to use these statements is to cause a procedure (an

re-dimensioning_20arrays

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Re-dimensioning arrays by Richard Russell, May 2014 BBC BASIC does not have a REDIM or REDIM PRESERVE statement, as found in some other dialects of BASIC (REDIM allows you to increase the dimensions of an existing array - the contents are lost - and REDIM PRESERVE allows you to increase the dimensions of an array without destroying its contents). However it is not difficult to provide an equivalent functionality using user-defined procedures (these are for BB4W, for BBCSDL see below):

reading_20a_20shortcut

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Reading a shortcut by Jon Ripley, January 2008 If you want to read the name of the file or directory pointed to by a short cut (link) file you can use the routine listed below. FNShell_GetShortcut takes a full path to a short cut (link) file and returns a path to the linked file:

reading_20and_20writing_20.ini_20data_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Reading and writing .INI data files by Richard Russell, May 2006 You may want your program to read configuration settings or user options on start up, to avoid the user having to enter them every time. One way of doing that is to use the registry, and this is described in the main help documentation

reading_20and_20writing_20arrays_20in_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Reading and writing arrays in files by Jon Ripley, May 2011 Alternative method added by Steve Drain, Oct 2013 BBC BASIC for Windows does not provide a simple method of writing arrays to a file and reading them back again, doing so traditionally requires looping through the array and saving each separate item individually.

reading_20and_20writing_20csv_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-02-14T13:45:50+00:00

Reading and writing CSV files by Richard Russell, July 2007 Comma Separated Value or CSV files are a common format typically used to represent the contents of a spreadsheet or database (or any other 2D matrix of data cells); they can by read and written by programs such as

reading_20and_20writing_20nonstandard_20values

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Reading and writing nonstandard values by J.G.Harston, July 2009 Read a 16-bit integer DEF FNrd16(I%):=BGET#I%+256*BGET#I% Read a 32-bit integer (same as INPUT#I%,A% but as a function, see notes) DEF FNrd32(I%):LOCAL A%:DIM zp% LOCAL 3:FOR A%=0 TO 3:zp%?A%=BGET#I%:NEXT:=!A%

reading_20and_20writing_20plain_20text_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Reading and writing plain text files by Richard Russell, August 2007 Standard text files, such as are created by text editors like Windows Notepad or MS-DOS EDIT, consist of lines of plain text separated by the character sequence Carriage Return, Line Feed

reading_20environment_20variables

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Reading Environment Variables by Richard Russell, May 2011 You can read the environment variables associated with the current process using code similar to this: PRINT FNenvironment("PATH") PRINT FNenvironment("USERNAME") END DEF FNenvironment(envar$) LOCAL buffer%, size% SYS "GetEnvironmentVariable", envar$, 0, 0 TO size% DIM buffer% LOCAL size% SYS "GetEnvironmentVariable", envar$, buffer%, size%+1 = $$buffer%

reading_20rss_20feeds

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Reading RSS Feeds by Tony Tooth and Richard Russell, Revised July 2009 There is a rapidly growing body of raw data available from certain sites, in the form of so-called RSS Feeds which can be downloaded and used within a BB4W application. RSS (Really Simple

reading_20the_20exit_20code_20of_20a_20dos_20utility

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Reading the exit code of a DOS utility by Richard Russell, May 2006 BBC BASIC for Windows allows you to execute an external program using the *RUN command. The program can be a Windows GUI program, a Windows console program or an MS-DOS program. Both Windows console programs and MS-DOS programs have the ability to return an

reading_20the_20palette_20contents

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Reading the palette contents by Richard Russell, October 2011 In BBC BASIC you can change the contents of the colour palette using either VDU 19 or a variant of the COLOUR statement. However, no standard method of reading back the contents of the palette is provided, other than by plotting the colour and sampling it using

receiving_20dropped_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Receiving dropped files by Richard Russell, June 2010 The article Opening a file by dropping or clicking describes how you can handle a file which is dragged-and-dropped onto your program's icon. Another way of receiving files is as a result of the user dropping them onto your program's

redim_20preserve

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:00+00:00

Redim Preserve by Richard Russell, May 2014 Liberty BASIC does not have the REDIM PRESERVE statement, available in some other BASIC dialects, which is used to change the dimensions of an array without destroying the data it contains. Fortunately in

redirecting_20the_20vdu_20commands_20to_20a_20sprite

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

#REDIRECT Drawing to an in-memory bitmap/texture

replacing_20the_20message_20pump

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Replacing the message pump by Richard Russell, January 2012 In Windows, every User Interface (UI) thread must have a message pump (or message loop), the function of which is to serialise and dispatch incoming messages to their destination windows. In BBC BASIC for Windows

responding_20to_20a_20hot_20key

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Responding to a hot key by Richard Russell, October 2010 A hot key is a unique system-wide key combination which can be used to cause your program to take some action, irrespective of which application currently has the keyboard 'input focus'. Typically your program will be running invisibly 'in the background', biding its time until the appropriate keys are pressed.

responding_20to_20mouse_20double-clicks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Responding to mouse double-clicks by Richard Russell, October 2015 By default the ON MOUSE event interrupt is activated by clicking one of the mouse buttons, but a double-click is not distinguishable from a single click. If you specifically want to respond to mouse double-clicks two steps are necessary; firstly you must enable them as follows:

returning_20an_20array_20from_20a_20function

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Returning an array from a function by Richard Russell, November 2012 Modifying the contents of an array (i.e. its elements) within a PROC or FN is straightforward, because arrays are passed by reference and therefore any modifications to their contents remain intact after the FN or PROC returns.

returning_20errors_20from_20windows_20commands

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Returning errors from Windows commands by Jonathan Harston, August 2010 The OSCLI command can be used to execute a Windows command. However, if the command fails, no error is generated, the Windows command interpreter merely displays an error message. You may see this appearing in a DOS command box before it quickly disappears.

reversing_20a_20string

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Reversing a string by Jon Ripley, May 2006 Reversing is a simple string manipulation that often has a sub-optimal solution. One commonly used method to reverse strings is: a$="Hello world!" IF LEN(a$)>0 THEN l%=LEN(a$)-1 FOR i%=0 TO l% DIV 2 tmp$=MID$(a$,i%,1) MID$(a$,i%,1)=MID$(a$,l%-i%,1) MID$(a$,l%-i%)=tmp$ NEXT i% ENDIF PRINT a$

right-click_20context_20menu

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Right-click Context Menu by Richard Russell, March 2014 When the user right-clicks in a window a WM_CONTEXTMENU message is generated, which may be intercepted using ON SYS (so long as a *SYS 1 command has been issued). On receipt of this message you should typically display a popup menu containing commands relevant to the context, for example if the user right-clicks in an editing pane it would often be appropriate to display the same menu as results from clicking on

rounding_20functions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Rounding functions by Richard Russell, June 2016 If you want to round a numeric value to a specific number of decimal places or significant figures there are a number of ways in which this can be achieved. The most flexible way is to use the @% system variable because, when used in conjunction with

running_a_bas_file_from_the_command_prompt

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Running a BAS file from the command line by Richard Russell, April 2019 It is straighforward to run a BASIC program from the command line, using either the BBC BASIC for Windows or BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 run-time engine: \path\to\bbcwrun6 \path\to\myprog.bbc /path/to/bbcsdl /path/to/myprog.bbc

sandbox

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Sandbox rem rem least squares polynomial fitting:- def fn_polyfit(Order,Npoints,z()) local i local o% : o%=Order if o<1 or o>6 then print “cannot have polynomial order of ”;o : end local N% : N%=Npoints local x(), y(), xn(), xny() : dim x(N%), y(N%), xn(N%), xny(N%)

saturation_arithmetic

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Saturation arithmetic by Richard Russell, 14th March 2021 When working with audio or video data one often wants to perform 'saturation arithmetic', such that the result of an arithmetic operation is 'clamped' or 'clipped' to a certain range of values. So typically that might be signed audio samples, which you want to be limited to the range -32768 to +32767 (or -32767 to +32767, the difference is unlikely to be important) without 'wrapping around'.

saving_20a_20gif_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Saving a GIF image by Richard Russell, December 2006 The main BBC BASIC for Windows documentation explains how to display a GIF image and elsewhere you can find out how to load a GIF image for use in your program. This article describes how to save an image as a GIF file. It relies on the presence of the

saving_20a_20jpeg_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Saving a JPEG image by Richard Russell, December 2006 The main BBC BASIC for Windows documentation explains how to display a JPEG image and elsewhere you can find out how to load a JPEG image for use in your program. This article describes how to save an image as a JPEG file. It relies on the presence of the

saving_20a_20png_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Saving a PNG image by Richard Russell, November 2010 This article describes how to save an image as a PNG file. It relies on the presence of the GDI Plus library so will work only on Windows XP (or later) or if you have specifically installed GDIPLUS.DLL

saving_20a_20tiff_20image

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Saving a TIFF image by Richard Russell, October 2010 This article describes how to save an image as a TIFF file. It relies on the presence of the GDI Plus library so will work only on Windows XP (or later) or if you have specifically installed GDIPLUS.DLL

saving_20previous_20load_20and_20save_20paths

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Saving previous load and save paths Please see the discussion page It is often useful if a program remembers where a file was last loaded from or saved to so that the next time a file open or file save dialogue is used it opens on the same directory as last time. Repeated calls of

scanning_20a_20directory_20_28reading_20directory_20entries_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Scanning a Directory (Reading Directory Entries) by JGH, 03-Jan-2008 The Windows API functions FindFirstFile and FindFileNext can be used to scan a directory to find what files and subdirectories exist within it. The BBC BASIC for Windows manual contains some

scrollable_20list_20boxes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Scrollable list boxes by Richard Russell, June 2010 There are three main ways in which a scroll bar may be used with a list box: * If the number of items is greater than will fit in the height of the list box, a vertical scroll bar is automatically added. This is the default behaviour.

scrolling_20a_20list_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Scrolling a list box by Richard Russell, March 2007 You can scroll the contents of a list box, under the control of your own program, by sending it a WM_VSCROLL message. The simple program below illustrates the use of that technique: INSTALL @lib$+"WINLIB5" WS_VSCROLL = &200000 WS_BORDER = &800000 LB_ADDSTRING = 384 WM_VSCROLL = 277 SB_BOTTOM = 7 hlist%=FN_listbox("", 20, 20, 200, 200, 1, WS_VSCROLL + WS_BORDER) REPEAT …

scrolling_20over_20a_20large_20canvas

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Scrolling over a large canvas by Richard Russell, September 2007 The code in this article requires BBC BASIC for Windows version 5.70a or later. Sometimes it may not be possible to display the entirety of your program's User Interface at once in a window of a sensible size, especially when you need the program to run on PCs with a relatively low display resolution. One solution to this is to give the user the ability to scroll the window so that the region of interest is in view.

searching_20ordered_20lists

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Searching ordered lists by Richard Russell, December 2006 The fastest way to search an ordered list is the binary search; you can find a description of how it works in the main BB4W documentation. The code below is a slightly simplified version, which searches an alphabetically-ordered string array for an exact match to a supplied string:

selecting_20a_20font_20by_20pixel_20height

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Selecting a font by pixel height by Richard Russell, July 2007 The BBC BASIC for Windows *FONT command selects the font size in points (nominally units of 1/72 inch), and as a consequence the character height in pixels varies acccording to the current Dots Per Inch setting. This is the way font size selection in Windows normally works and is what you would expect. See the article

selecting_20and_20copying_20using_20the_20mouse

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Selecting and copying using the mouse by Richard Russell, May 2006, amended October 2009 Selecting and copying text Many Windows programs allow you to select a block of text by dragging the mouse. Typically you can then copy the selected text to the clipboard by right-clicking and selecting

selecting_20draft_20print_20quality

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Selecting draft print quality by Richard Russell, November 2009 If your printer has a draft quality setting (which may, for example, be faster and/or use less ink) you can select it as follows: PROCprintquality(-1) : REM Draft quality

selecting_20multiple_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Selecting multiple files by Richard Russell, March 2010 The main Help documentation describes how to use the Windows GetOpenFileName common dialogue to select a file (usually so it can subsequently be opened). That dialogue also permits the selection of multiple files

sending_20a_20serial_20break

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Sending a serial break by Richard Russell, July 2007 Occasionally you may wish to send a break condition on a serial port output line. For example this may be needed to 'wake up' a remote device such as a modem. You can easily do that using the following code:

sending_20an_20email_20automatically

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Sending an email automatically by Richard Russell, October 2006 See also Sending an email with attachments and Sending an HTML email with optional attachments There are two principal ways of automating the process of sending an email message: utililising the resources of the user's existing email client (e.g. Outlook or Eudora) or doing it entirely with BBC BASIC code.

sending_20an_20email_20with_20attachments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Sending an email with attachments by Richard Russell, October 2012, corrected August 2015 See also Sending an HTML email with optional attachments In the article Sending an email automatically the procedure PROCsendmail() automatically sends an email using the SOCKLIB library. Listed below is a procedure which performs the same function except that you can specify one or more files to attach to the email. The final parameter is a comma-separated list of the pathnames of the file(s) you wis…

sending_20an_20html_20email_20with_20optional_20attachments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Sending an HTML email with optional attachments by Richard Russell, April 2014, corrected August 2015 In the article Sending an email with attachments the procedure PROCsendmailattach() automatically sends an email using the SOCKLIB library. Listed below is a procedure which performs the same function except that you can send the body of the email as

sending_20and_20receiving_20midi_20data

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Sending and receiving MIDI data by Richard Russell, December 2010 MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard means of communicating with a digital musical instrument, whether an input device like a keyboard or an output device like a synthesiser.

sending_20image_20files_20to_20the_20printer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Sending image files to the printer by Richard Russell, May 2006, updated November 2010 and January 2012 BBC BASIC for Windows provides the *DISPLAY command to display an image contained in a Windows Bitmap (.BMP) file on the screen, but there is no equivalent command for sending the file to the printer. You can of course first display it on the screen and then transfer it to the printer using

sending_20raw_20data_20to_20a_20printer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Sending raw data to a printer by Richard Russell, December 2006 Normally BBC BASIC for Windows outputs to a printer using the Windows printer drivers. This is useful in presenting a uniform interface; you don't have to concern yourself with the particular manufacturer and model of printer. To change the font you can use

sending_midi_data_linux

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Sending MIDI data (Linux) by Richard Russell, May 2018 Unlike Windows, Linux does not incorporate a software MIDI synthesiser as a standard feature. If you want to output MIDI data you will need to install a synthesiser such as amSynth or Timidity. For example to install amSynth you would typically do:

setting_20an_20edit_20box_20cue_20banner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Setting an edit box cue banner by Richard Russell, March 2009 Windows Vista and later have the capability of displaying a cue banner in an edit control; this is a line of 'greyed out' text which can be used to prompt the user for the information he is expected to enter in that box. For example if the edit control receives a search string, the cue banner may read

setting_20speech_20parameters

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Setting speech parameters by Richard Russell, October 2008 This article is specific to the SAPI5 speech system, typically installed on Windows 2000, XP and Vista When using Windows' built-in speech synthesis capability it is possible to override the default

setting_20the_20desktop_20wallpaper

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Setting the Desktop wallpaper by Jon Ripley, July 2007 Setting the Desktop wallpaper To set the current Desktop wallpaper use the following code: SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 1 SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20 SYS "SystemParametersInfo", SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER, 0, filename$, SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE

setting_20the_20focus_20in_20a_20dialogue_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Setting the focus in a dialogue box by Richard Russell, May 2010 If you want to initialise a dialogue box so that the input focus is on a particular control, simply make that control the first in the template (i.e. the first to be created after calling

setting_20the_20position_20of_20the_20file_20open_20dialogue

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Setting the position of the File Open dialogue by Richard Russell, February 2016 The File Open (and File Save) dialogues open, by default, at a position on the screen determined by Windows. Whilst this will almost always be satisfactory, there may very occasionally be a requirement to position the dialogue box at specific coordinates. This may be achieved using the code below:

sharing_20a_20structure_20between_20processes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Sharing a structure between processes by Richard Russell, October 2014 Most modern PCs have multiple CPU cores, often four or more. If you are creating a computationally-intensive application you may wish to take advantage of this feature, but that is not so easy to do in BBC BASIC. One approach is to code some of the functionality in assembly language (using the built-in assembler) which can be arranged to run in a separate thread, and therefore potentially on a different core. However this …

sharing_20private_20variables

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T22:13:30+00:00

Sharing PRIVATE variables by Richard Russell, May 2007 The PRIVATE statement allows you to create variables (also arrays, structures etc.) which are private to a procedure or function, in the sense that they retain their values from one call to the next, but are not visible to the rest of the program.

short-circuit_20evaluation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:56+00:00

Short-circuit evaluation by Richard Russell, December 2009 Consider a compound conditional test such as the following: IF condition1 AND condition2 AND condition3 THEN It can be seen that if condition1 is FALSE then the entire expression must be FALSE, irrespective of the results of the other conditions. Ideally, in such a case it would be better not to waste time evaluating

shutting_20down_20the_20pc

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:55+00:00

Shutting down the PC by Richard Russell, October 2007 It's not a very likely thing to want to do, but the code below shuts down the PC when executed. Note that if run under Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista it's entirely likely that the system adminstrator will have disabled the ability of ordinary user programs to shut down the PC. In that case the program will fail with the

sidebar

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:11+00:00

Navigation Assembler BBC BASIC Language Communication and I/O Database and Files Graphics and Games Libraries Manual Operating System Program Editor and IDE Sound, Music and Video Tools and Utilities Tutorials User Interface

simd_20signum_20function

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

SIMD signum function by Richard Russell, 30th December 2014 (based on a blog post by Raymond Chen) The signum function returns -1 for all negative numbers, +1 for all positive non-zero numbers and zero for an input of zero; it corresponds to the SGN() function in BBC BASIC. There is no direct equivalent in assembly language, but the following code snippets illustrate how it may be calculated on multiple data values using MMX and SSE2 code. In all cases the

simple_20list_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:53+00:00

Simple list box by Richard Russell, February 2012 A simple List Box may be used to display a list of items which is too big to fit in the output window in its entirety. The List Box provides the ability to scroll through the list, without the overheads associated with a dialogue box:

simple_20registry_20usage

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Simple Registry Usage By JGH, Feb-2007. The registry is a repository of data maintained by Windows, which holds various information. An application can store configuration or other information from one session to the next within the HKCU/Software/MyPublisher/MyApplication part of the registry, where

simple_20terminal_20program

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Simple Terminal Program by Colin McDonagh, April 2007 In my work, I often need to communicate with older pieces of equipment via RS232 cables. Of course there are many such applications available, but it's quite easy in BBC BASIC. First we set up the com port we want to use, in this case com1.

simplifying_20arithmetic_20using_20strings

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Simplifying arithmetic using strings Sometimes, rather than building a complicated formula for a piece of code, it can be simplified by using a string of values. For instance, I was recently updating some Acorn code that read VDU variables so that it would run in BBC BASIC for Windows. The VDU variables are in a slightly different order on BBFW than they are on RISC

simulating_20a_20modal_20dialogue_20box

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:54+00:00

Simulating a modal dialogue box by Richard Russell, October 2006 Dialogue boxes created using the functions in the WINLIB2 library are modeless dialogue boxes, that is the main window (and any other dialogue boxes) remain active whilst they are open. If you want to simulate the behaviour of a

simulating_20a_20union_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Simulating a union (LBB) by Richard Russell, September 2016 A union is a value or data structure that may have two or more different representations or formats. Liberty BASIC doesn't have unions, but it is simple to simulate them in LBB using structures. The trick is to create two (or more) structures, which should be the same size, and then to arrange for them to share the same memory address.

simulating_20a_20union

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Simulating a union by Richard Russell, March 2007 BBC BASIC doesn't have unions, but it is possible to simulate them using structures. The trick is to create two (or more) structures, which should be the same size, then manipulate the internal pointers such that both structures refer to the

simulating_20assembler_20macros

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:52+00:00

Simulating assembler macros by Richard Russell, December 2008 This article supplements the information in the main Help documentation under Conditional assembly and macros. The assembler built into BBC BASIC for Windows doesn't have a conventional macro facility, but something similar can be simulated utilising the

simulating_20continue

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Simulating CONTINUE by Richard Russell, November 2012, extended April 2022 Many languages, including some dialects of BASIC (e.g. Visual Basic), have a CONTINUE or CONT statement, which continues execution at the next iteration of a FOR, REPEAT or WHILE loop. It is equivalent to jumping to the NEXT, UNTIL or ENDWHILE statement (i.e. it skips the remainder of the 'body' of the loop).

simulating_20resume_20and_20resume_20next

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Simulating RESUME and RESUME NEXT by Richard Russell, September 2007 BBC BASIC doesn't have the RESUME and RESUME NEXT statements sometimes found in other dialects of BASIC. Although there are alternative (and probably better) ways of achieving a similar effect when writing a program from scratch, their absence can be inconvenient when translating programs from another dialect. This article describes how a very similar effect can be achieved in

sorting_20arrays_20of_20structures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Sorting Arrays of Structures by Michael Hutton, October 2008 The SORTSALIB library provides a fast way of sorting Arrays of Structures. It will sort the following types of structure elements: bytes(&), integers(%), floating point numbers (both FLOAT 40 and FLOAT 64 (#)), and strings ($).

sorting_20the_20characters_20in_20a_20string

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Sorting the characters in a string by Richard Russell, October 2008 You can quickly and easily sort the elements of an array by using the SORTLIB library, but BBC BASIC for Windows does not directly provide the facility to sort the characters in a string

sound_2c_20music_20and_20video

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Sound, Music and Video Audio controls * Controlling the audio mixer * Controlling the Master Volume * Interrogating the audio mixer Real-time audio * Capturing audio using MCI * Inputting real-time audio * Outputting real-time audio MIDI * Listing the MIDI output devices * Pausing and resuming MIDI playback * Sending and receiving MIDI data * Sending MIDI data (Linux) Music * Playing an MP3 file Sound * Playing an arpeggio * Minimizing sound clicks * Using S…

sound_20and_20envelope_20in_20assembler

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

SOUND and ENVELOPE in assembler by Richard Russell, March 2010 BBC BASIC for Windows provides no direct means for an assembly language program to access the SOUND or ENVELOPE statements. It can be achieved using the technique described in Calling BASIC from assembler code but an alternative approach is to use the code listed below. This makes available three subroutines:

space.menu

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:01+00:00

space.menu BB4W Assembler BBC BASIC Language Communication and I/O Database and Files Graphics and Games Libraries Manual Operating System Program Editor and IDE Sound, Music and Video Tools and Utilities Tutorials User Interface /LB%20Booster LB Booster

speaking_20the_20contents_20of_20a_20file

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Speaking the contents of a file by Richard Russell, October 2008 The supplied example program SPEAK.BBC illustrates how you can use Windows' built-in speech synthesis capabilities to speak a string (or strings) provided by your program, but what if you want to speak the contents of a text file? You could, of course, load the file into a set of strings and speak those, but the

speech_20recognition_20_28shared_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Speech Recognition (Shared) by Rob Jeffs, February 2017 The code below demonstrates Command and Control speech recognition for a Shared Recognizer, via the API route (not COM automation/ActiveX). Although, confusingly, the first unavoidable step is to create an instance of a speech recognizer object using COM automation!

speech_20synthesis_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Speech synthesis (LBB) by Richard Russell, November 2015 The program below illustrates the use of the speak sub; it is compatible with both LB and LBB. Note that it is necessary to declare speechInit as global: ' LB speech synthesis without a helper DLL! ' by Richard Russell, 26-Mar-2012 open "ole32.dll" for dll as #ole32 calldll #ole32, "CoInitialize", 0 as long, r as long global speechInit do read phrase$ print phrase$ call speak phras…

speeding_20up_20graphics_20plotting

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Speeding up graphics plotting by Richard Russell, December 2013 You may occasionally find that plotting graphics in LBB is a little slower than in LB 4.04; this results from the overhead of the emulator. This can often be resolved by sending fewer, longer, graphics commands.

sprites_20in_20multiple_20windows_20_28lbb_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Sprites in multiple windows (LBB) by Richard Russell, February 2015 In LB Booster you can, with care, have sprites in two or more windows or graphicboxes. To make this work you need to take the following steps before every DRAWSPRITES command:

sqlite_20example_20program_20_28phonenos_29

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

SQLite Example Program (PhoneNos) by Jon Ripley, October 2012 Please note: This program requires SQLite library for BB4W. This example program shows how to create a simple contact database using SQLite and includes methods to create, update, delete, find and list records.

stacks_20using_20structures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Stacks using structures by Jon Ripley, May 2006 A stack is a dynamic data structure operating on the principle of LIFO (Last In First Out). Items are added to and removed from the top of the stack. There are three operations that are applied to stacks, namely initialise, add to the stack (push) and remove from the stack (pull). Only the last item pushed to the stack is accessible.

start

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:22:10+00:00

(also for BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0) ---------- This Wiki contains a set of technical articles for BBC BASIC programmers, in an easy-to-use form. You can simply browse the contents using the Category List below, or search for a word or phrase by typing it into the

storing_20structures_20containing_20strings

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Storing structures containing strings by Jon Ripley, July 2006 The technique described in the storing structures in files article does not work for structures containing strings or string arrays. In most cases it is easier simply to write the individual structure members to file one at a time using

storing_20structures_20in_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-12T22:46:21+00:00

Storing structures in files by Richard Russell, July 2006 BBC BASIC does not provide any built-in means of writing entire data structures to a file and reading them back again. Ideally it would be nice if one could say “PRINT #file%,struct{}“ and

structured_20exception_20handling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Structured Exception Handling by Richard Russell, April 2008 Several modern programming languages (e.g. C++, Java and Visual Basic) provide a Structured Exception Handling capability. Typically this uses a syntax similar to the following: try { // Code you want to execute, which might result in an error } catch { // Code to execute if an error occurred in the 'try' clause }

sub-structure_arrays

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Sub-structure arrays by Richard Russell, December 2020 Sub-structure arrays (that is, a structure member that is itself an array of structures) are not supported in any current version of BBC BASIC. For example one might prefer to have code something like this, but unfortunately it doesn't work:

substituting_20characters_20in_20a_20string

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Substituting characters in a string by Richard Russell, August 2011 If you want to substitute one character for another in a string (for example you want to change every colon ':' into a dash '-') there's a more efficient and elegant way than looping through each character in turn:

summing_20part_20of_20an_20array

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Summing part of an array by Richard Russell, October 2013 (original concept by Michael Hutton) The SUM() function returns the sum of all the elements of an array. It may occasionally be useful to discover the sum of only part of an array, but BBC BASIC doesn't have a built-in function to do that.

supporting_20different_20dpi_20values

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Supporting different DPI values by Richard Russell, July 2006 Windows assumes, for certain operations (particularly displaying text), a specific dots per inch (or pixels per inch) value for the current display. The most common value used is 96 dots per inch (dpi), but other values, for example 120 dpi, will be encountered. A user can choose the higher value in

swapping_20the_20contents_20of_20two_20areas_20of_20memory

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Swapping the contents of two areas of memory by Jon Ripley, August 2006 The Windows API provides several functions for manipulating blocks of memory but is missing a function to swap the contents of two areas of memory. This function can be added to your programs by adding following routine:

swapping_20the_20mouse_20buttons

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Swapping the mouse buttons by Richard Russell, January 2011 You can swap the mouse buttons, that is reverse the normal actions of the left and right buttons, as follows: SYS "SwapMouseButton", 1 To restore the conventional functions for the buttons use:

switching_20back_20from_20full-screen

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Switching back from full-screen by Richard Russell, October 2013 The main Help documentation tells you how to switch to full-screen mode but it doesn't tell you how to switch back to a regular window if you need to. To do that you can use code similar to the following: GWL_STYLE = -16 HWND_NOTOPMOST = -2 SWP_FRAMECHANGED = 32 SYS "SetWindowLong", @hwnd%, GWL_STYLE, &16CF0000 SYS "SetWindowPos", @hwnd%, HWND_NOTOPMOST, 100, 100, 800, 600, SWP_FRAMECHAN…

synchronizing_20with_20video_20refresh

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Synchronizing with video refresh by Richard Russell, April 2007 (Note that the code in this article requires DirectX 7 or later). To achieve perfectly smooth animated graphics it is necessary to synchronize the output from your program with the video refresh rate of your graphics card and monitor. For example, if your display is running at 75 Hz your program should update its output (preferably) 75 times per second, synchronized with the start of each video frame. If it cannot run that quick…

the_20atan2_20function

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

The ATAN2 function by Richard Russell, September 2007 BBC BASIC includes the ATN (arctangent) function as standard, but it does not include the ATAN2 function available in some other programming languages. The difference between them is that ATN takes a single parameter and returns its arctangent in the range -PI/2 to +PI/2, whereas

the_20extended_20combobox

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:45+00:00

The extended combobox by Richard Russell, January 2007 Ordinary comboboxes can be created using the routines provided in the WINLIB2 (for use in a dialogue box) and WINLIB5 (for use on the main output window) libraries. However there is a different kind, the extended combobox

the_20graphics_20screen

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

The Graphics Screen by Mohsen Alshayef 24 Oct 2008 BBC BASIC for Windows provides keywords to perform graphics operations, such as plotting points, lines and circles, etc. These operations are performed using graphics coordinates into the graphics screen.

three_or_more_pass_assembly

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Three (or more) pass assembly by Richard Russell, September 2021 The x86 CPU has some instructions which have alternative encodings that are different lengths. One of those instructions is 'push constant', which has these two alternative forms when the constant is in the range -128 to +127 (I'll use the value &55 as an example):

tokeniser

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Tokeniser by JGH, June 2006 BBC BASIC programs are tokenised, that is, BASIC keywords are stored as one-byte values. This results in programs which execute faster and are more compact. A tokenised line can easily be detokenised, or expanded, as there is a one-to-one mapping between token values and the expanded string. For example, code similar to the following would expand a tokenised line:

tools_20and_20utilities

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Tools and Utilities Supplied Add-in Utilities These utilities are automatically installed with BBC BASIC for Windows; they should appear in the Utilities menu. Utilities Manager (authors Malcolm Marten and Richard Russell) This is a little program that expands the Utility menu system to cope with more than nine add-in utilities, and allows it to be configured by any BB4W user. It has two parts: a list of 'extra' utilities or other runable programs, and a manager to add, move or remove…

tooltips_20on_20the_20main_20output_20window

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Tooltips on the main output window by Richard Russell, May 2009 Tooltips (helpful information displayed in a small box when you 'hover' the mouse over a certain region) are usually associated with toolbars, status bars, dialogue boxes or other Windows controls, and information on such uses can be found at the linked pages. However it is also possible to display tooltips on your main output window.

torus2

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

ON ERROR OSCLI "refresh on" : IF ERR=17 CHAIN @lib$+"../examples/tools/touchide" ELSE MODE 3 : PRINT REPORT$ : END REM Torus 2 REM Version 1.2 // 16-Mar-2012 REM Original BB4W/GFXLIB program by David Williams REM BBCSDL/GFX2DLIB adaptation by Richard Russell. REM Prevent the program window from being resized by the user IF @platform% >= &2050000 SYS "SDL_SetWindowResizable", @hwnd%, FALSE REM Select a 640x512 display mode and switch off the flas…

tutorial_201_20-_20_20direct3d_2011_20basics

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:51+00:00

Tutorial 1 - Direct3D 11 Basics by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct 3D 11 Tutorial 1 but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

tutorial_202_20-_20rendering_20a_20triangle

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Tutorial 2 - Rendering a Triangle by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct 3D 11 Tutorial 2 but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

tutorial_203_20-_20shaders_20and_20effect_20system

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Tutorial 3 - Shaders and Effect System by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct 3D 11 Tutorial 3 but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

tutorial_204_20-_203d_20spaces

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Tutorial 4 - 3D Spaces by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct 3D 11 Tutorial 4 but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

tutorial_205_20-_203d_20transformation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Tutorial 5 - 3D Transformation by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct 3D 11 Tutorial 5 but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

tutorial_206_20-_20lighting

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Tutorial 6 - Lighting by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct 3D 11 Tutorial 6 but with the code translated from C++ to BBC BASIC for Windows

tutorial_207_20-_20texture_20mapping_20and_20constant_20buffers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Tutorial 7 - Texture Mapping and Constant Buffers by Richard Russell, August 2015 Note that the code in this tutorial requires Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 This tutorial is closely based on Microsoft's Direct3D 11 Tutorial 7 but with the code translated from C++ to

tutorials

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Tutorials Peter Nairn's Beginners' Tutorial * Chapter 1 - Introduction * Chapter 2 - One Line Programs * Chapter 3 - Using the Editor * Chapter 4 - Storing Data in Variables * Chapter 5 - Numeric Data Types * Chapter 6 - String Data Types * Chapter 7 - Coloured Text * Chapter 8 - Interacting with the User * Chapter 9 - Conditional Execution * Chapter 10 - Selection using CASE * Chapter 11 - Looping with FOR * Chapter 12 - Others Loops: REPEAT and WHILE * Chapter 13 - …

unicode_20filenames

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Unicode filenames by Richard Russell, October 2016 Although BBC BASIC for Windows includes limited support for Unicode (UTF-8) strings, this support does not extend to directory and file names. Even if you explicitly select UTF-8 as the character set in a

uploading_20files_20to_20an_20ftp_20server

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Uploading files to an FTP server by Richard Russell, March 2010, amended June 2012 This article describes how to upload one or more files to an FTP server. The first step is to define some constants: FTP_TRANSFER_TYPE_ASCII = 1 FTP_TRANSFER_TYPE_BINARY = 2 _INTERNET_DEFAULT_FTP_PORT = 21 : REM default port for FTP servers _INTERNET_SERVICE_FTP = 1 _INTERNET_FLAG_PASSIVE = &8000000 OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG = 0 : REM use registry configuration …

user_20interface_20and_20windows_20api

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

User Interface and Windows API Redirect to User Interface

user_20interface

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

User Interface Dialogue Boxes These articles are applicable to BBC BASIC for Windows only but in some cases BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 has an equivalent capability. * Adding tooltips to a dialogue box * Allocating item IDs automatically * Changing a control's colours * Changing the font of a control * Creating a dialogue box from a resource * Customising the Browse for Folder dialogue * Displaying a JPEG or GIF in a picture box * Multi-column list boxes * Selecting multiple files…

using_20a_20pager_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Using a pager control by Richard Russell, July 2010 A pager control is useful if you have a child window which is too big to be displayed in its entirety. The pager control allows you to scroll into view the part of the child control in which you are interested.

using_20an_20atl_20container_20control

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Using an ATL container control by Richard Russell, November 2006 If, in your BBC BASIC program, you want to display a 'document' file (or other registered file type, such as an image file) you can very easily do that using SYS “ShellExecute”, as described in the

using_20array_20pointers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Using array pointers by Richard Russell, December 2009 In BBC BASIC for Windows you can perform operations on entire arrays, such as arithmetic operations and the dot product. For example: a() = a() + b() + c() d() = e() * f() g() = h() . i() j() = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

using_20callback_20functions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Using callback functions by Richard Russell, December 2008 A few Windows API functions require the use of a callback routine, that is a function which you provide that is called by Windows during execution of the API call. The normal SYS statement does not provide this capability, but it is available by means of the

using_20data_20statements_20in_20libraries

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Using DATA statements in libraries by Richard Russell, March 2011 Because you cannot use line numbers or labels in libraries (or other INSTALLed modules), the conventional forms of the RESTORE statement cannot be used. At first sight it might appear that this precludes the use of

using_20larger_20colour_20palettes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Using larger colour palettes by Richard Russell, July 2010 By default, BBC BASIC for Windows uses a colour palette of 16 colours. It must be emphasised that this doesn't restrict the number of colours you can use in your program, any more than an artist's palette retricts the number of colours he can use in a painting. Because you can change the contents of the palette whenever you like, you can use any colour available with your current display settings (see for example the supplied example …

using_20lbb_20with_20liberty_20basic_20workshop

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using LBB with Liberty BASIC Workshop by Richard Russell, October 2013 If you use Liberty BASIC Workshop you can easily configure it to call LB Booster to compile and run your programs. To do that follow these steps: * In LB Workshop select Options... Preferences...

using_20non-standard_20mouse_20pointers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Using non-standard mouse pointers by Richard Russell, October 2007 You can select the mouse pointer (cursor) from any of the standard shapes using the MOUSE ON statement. However there may be occasions when you want to use a pointer that is not one of the standard shapes. This is most straightforwardly achieved by loading the pointer shape from a cursor (.CUR) file.

using_20openin_20_28etc._29_20with_20wildcards

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using OPENIN (etc.) with wildcards by Richard Russell, June 2010 The BBC BASIC OPENIN, OPENOUT and OPENUP functions generally take an unambiguous filename as their parameter. In BBC BASIC for Windows you can instead supply an ambiguous filename, that is a filename containing one or more

using_20regular_20expressions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Using regular expressions by Richard Russell, December 2006 Regular expressions provide a means to specify a pattern of characters, or syntax rule, which a string (or part of a string) must match. Certain metacharacters have special significance; for example a dot (.) matches any single character, square brackets [] enclose a list of matching characters, a caret (^) signifies negation and so on. Here are some simple examples:

using_20rich_20edit_20controls

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Using Rich Edit controls by Richard Russell, March 2007 Rich Edit controls are superficially very similar to ordinary Edit Boxes, but they give you much greater control over the formatting of their contents. Amongst the many features available are:

using_20sound_20with_20true_20frequencies

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using SOUND with true frequencies by Richard Russell, May 2014 The SOUND statement's third parameter normally specifies the required pitch in units of quarter-semitones. For example the value 100 corresponds to middle C and the value 136 corresponds to the

using_20sse2_20instructions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Using SSE2 instructions by Richard Russell, updated May 2015 SSE2 instructions are supported by the ASMLIB2 library, and that will generally be the most appropriate way to incorporate them in a program. However using the library has one significant disadvantage: the resulting program cannot be straightforwardly compiled, because the SSE2 instructions will not be accepted by the

using_20supplied_20example_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Using supplied example files by Richard Russell, August 2007 If you want to utilise, in your own program, any of the example files supplied with BBC BASIC for Windows the best way of accessing them is relative to the @lib$ folder. For example, if you want to customise a toolbar using the file

using_20the_20built-in_20program_20cruncher

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using the built-in program cruncher by Jon Ripley, April 2007 The BBC BASIC for Windows compiler provides four functions to rewrite programs before compilation, these options are: * Discard spaces * Concatenate lines * Remove REMarks * Abbreviate names

using_20the_20date_20and_20time_20picker

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:45+00:00

Using the Date and Time Picker by Richard Russell, May 2006 One of the standard controls provided by the Windows API is the Date and Time Picker. This can be used when you want the user to enter a date or a time into your program. For date entry Windows can display a small clickable calendar:

using_20the_20entire_20desktop_20area

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using the entire desktop area by Richard Russell, October 2006 Normally you will want your BBC BASIC program either to use the default window size (this is appropriate for simple programs outputting only textual information) or to fix the window to a specific size in pixels (this will generally make incorporating graphics much easier, and makes your program independent of display resolution). The latter can be achieved either by using the

using_20the_20eventlib_20library

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using the EVENTLIB library by Richard Russell, August 2014 (This article is an extended version of the forum message announcing the EVENTLIB library). The EVENTLIB library is designed to circumvent some limitations in the built-in ON MOUSE, ON MOVE, ON SYS and ON TIME event-handing mechanism in

using_20the_20fscale_20instruction

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using the fscale instruction by Tony Tooth, January 2016. Edited by Tony Tooth April 2018 Randall Hyde's book “The Art of Assembly Language” omits to cover or even mention the fscale instruction in the main text or in the index, although it is in his Table B-2: Floating Point Instruction Set.

using_20the_20internal_20speaker

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:50+00:00

Using the internal speaker by Richard Russell, November 2007 The code in this article requires Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista. Even if your PC has a sound card (or integrated audio) it is still possible to use the internal speaker (if fitted) to produce simple sounds. You can do that using the

using_20the_20lea_20instruction

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:47+00:00

Using the lea instruction by Richard Russell, July 2007 Beginners in x86 (or IA-32) assembly language programming often fail to appreciate the value of the lea (Load Effective Address) instruction and use it rarely, if at all. lea takes advantage of the CPU's address generator(s) in being able to perform some simple calculations on 32-bit values which do not tie-up the resources of the CPU's Arithmetic Logic Unit(s). In so doing the resulting code can be shorter and faster.

using_20transparent_20windows

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:46+00:00

Using transparent windows by Richard Russell, August 2006 This article is not applicable to Windows 9x, Windows Me or Windows NT4. Normally the main output window of your BASIC program has an opaque background, hiding anything 'underneath' (whether the Desktop or another window). However, with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, it is possible to make the window background transparent. This allows some interesting effects to be achieved:

using_28_29_20format_20extended_20functionality

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Using() Format Extended Functionality LBB supports extended functionality for the using() function as is common in many other BASIC programming languages: # The hash character is used to represent a digit position. + A plus sign at the beginning or end of the template string causes the sign (+ or -) to be printed before or after the number.

using_2016-bit_20floating_20point_20values

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Using 16-bit floating point values by Richard Russell, August 2007 BBC BASIC for Windows stores floating point numbers in 40-bit and 64-bit resolutions and has no built-in support for 16-bit (half precision) floating point numbers. Half precision floats are sometimes used in graphics applications, including OpenGL and Direct3D, because they are an efficient method of representing luminance and chrominance levels with a high dynamic range.

using_2032-bit_20floating_20point_20values

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:49+00:00

Using 32-bit floating point values by Jon Ripley, August 2006 BBC BASIC for Windows stores floating point numbers in 40-bit and 64-bit resolutions and has no built-in support for 32-bit (single precision) floating point numbers. When using the Windows

using_serial_ports_in_linux

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:45+00:00

Using serial ports in Linux by Richard Russell, March 2022 In both Windows and Linux-derived operating systems serial ports are treated like files, i.e. to read data from a serial port you would use INPUT# or BGET# etc. and to write data to a serial port you would use

variable_length_array_structure

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-07-06T17:17:31+00:00

Variable-length array in a structure by Richard Russell, September 2023 Suppose you're using a structure to represent an object, and a collection of those structures (perhaps a linked-list or a structure array) to represent a set of those objects. Further suppose that the objects themselves each contain a collection of things, which you want to represent as an array inside the structure.

verbose_20error_20messages

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:44+00:00

Verbose error messages By J.G.Harston, July 2009 The REPORT command reports the last program error. It can make error messages more informative if you also display a message telling the user what action caused the error. A simple way to do this is to set and clear a variable around actions, and display this message as part of the error handler. For instance, the following error handler:

waiting_20for_20an_20external_20program_20to_20terminate

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

Waiting for an external program to terminate by Richard Russell, June 2006 The *RUN command (or, equivalently, the OSCLI “RUN” statement) executes a specified external application and (by default) waits for the application to terminate before returning control to your BASIC program. This is often what is required: for example if the external application creates a file you probably don't want to continue execution of your BASIC program until the file has been created.

when_20and_20when_20not_20to_20use_20_2acd

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

When and when not to use *CD by Richard Russell, June 2007 In BBC BASIC for Windows you can change the current directory (folder) using the *CD (or alternatively OSCLI “CD”) command: *CD "C:\MyPath\MyFolder" or NewDirectory$ = "C:\MyPath\MyFolder" OSCLI "CD """+NewDirectory$+""""

whole-array_20operations_20in_20structures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

Whole-array operations in structures by Richard Russell, August 2013 (for an alternative way of tackling this issue, see Variable-length array in a structure) As it states in the main help documentation the 'whole array' operations (e.g. assignment, arithmetic and the SUM and MOD functions) cannot be used with arrays which are structure members. Similarly, you cannot pass a structure-member array as the parameter of an FN or PROC. These limitations arise because of the need to maintain compat…

writing_20console_20mode_20programs_20that_20will_20also_20run_20in_20the_20ide

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

Writing console mode programs that will also run in the IDE by Jon Ripley, January 2007, April 2007 The following code demonstrates how to write a console mode BBC BASIC program that will also run from the IDE: IF FNInConsoleMode THEN SYS "GetStdHandle",-10 TO @hfile%(1):*INPUT 13 SYS "GetStdHandle",-11 TO @hfile%(2):*OUTPUT 14 SYS "SetConsoleMode",@hfile%(1),0 ENDIF PRINT "Hello world!"' INPUT "What is your name ",name$ …

writing_20graphics_20to_20the_20printer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

Writing graphics to the printer by Richard Russell, May 2006 The only built-in means for writing graphics to the printer provided by BBC BASIC for Windows is the *HARDCOPY command: this transfers an area of the screen (which may include graphics) to the printer. However this is not a very satisfactory method because the graphics are limited to the resolution of the screen, which is far poorer than the resolution of a typical (laser or inkjet) printer; graphics can therefore appear much coarse…

writing_20log_20files

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:48+00:00

Writing log files by Richard Russell, June 2010 Conventionally, a log file is a plain-text file containing a list of records (probably timed) corresponding to significant events. For example, a program might log the occurrence of errors for subsequent analysis.

writing_20to_20the_20screen_20using_20the_20windows_20api

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

Writing to the screen using the Windows API by Richard Russell, November 2006 Normally you would write to the screen using BBC BASIC's built-in text and graphics statements; see the main help documentation (particularly Graphics and Colours and VDU Emulation). However there may be circumstances when you need to use the Windows

writing_20to_20vdu_20variables

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-05T00:21:43+00:00

Writing to VDU variables by Richard Russell, April 2009 The main Help documentation recommends that the VDU variables be treated as read-only values, which are modified only by means of the related VDU commands or associated keywords. However, to achieve certain special effects, or in advanced applications, it may be appropriate to write to those variables. This should be done with care, if unwanted side-effects are not to result.