Well I havent worked on my GUI for a long while. Monthes...

So the other day I randomly got started working on it again.

I tried to totally rewrite it from scratch but didnt get the result i wanted.

So, I thought, why not just take my version that works and simplify the hell out of it.

I rewrote most sections piece by piece, and now the code is over 200 lines smaller.

The windows dont resize or maximize anymore, only minimize, move, and restore back to window.

some of the icons on the desktop launch external applications, some are minimized windows.

all the shortcuts will need to be changed because they are set up for my computer.

also, a few shortcuts are set up to open a file browser pointed at a specific directory.



I tacked on the background image subroutines as an afterthought so changing the wallpaper is all the way at the end of the program.

and adding new shortcuts and windows is at the top.



Here are some screenshots:



















and here is the source:


  os3-2.7z (Size: 148 KB / Downloads: 44)

I started working on the QB64 video+audio format maker I shared at the old forum, adding playback controls, etc.  I want to load images as Hardware images because they seem to display much faster, will allow better frame rates, but when doing that the screen blanks horrible.  Not sure why and what can fix the blinking.  Hoping to discover a solution or I will have to stick when the slower regular way.

I've attached the code and a test QBV file.  As is the video displays ok, but if you comment out line #53 and use #54 instead (hardware images) the screen will blink very badly.  The video is a low resolution one for testing purposes, me playing a short Christmas song on the piano.

Thanks for any help.

- Dav


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I thought I'd be nice and post a word today, to give Pete a break for a bit.  (Also, someone asked me about this, and it's just as easy to write an answer here as it is elsewhere.  )

WIDTH -- One of those simple little commands that has been in the language forever and ever.  Going back to the days of GWBASIC, one could always use WIDTH to set the character height and width of a SCREEN 0 screen.  You can see our wiki article on it here: https://qb64phoenix.com/qb64wiki/index.php/WIDTH

Usage has always been rather simple:  WIDTH columns, rows

One keyword, two parameters to set how many columns and how many characters you wanted to print to the screen.  Can't get much simpler than that, now can it??

So, someone asked me, "WHAT THE HECK ARE THE EXTRA TWO PARAMETERS THAT QB64PE ACCEPTS AFTER THAT???"  (And yes, I was asked in all caps, so you know this is a serious question!)

Let me answer this in two parts:

For our Linux and Mac users:  Those two parameters are nothing for you.  They do nothing.  Change nothing.  They're not implemented in either Linux nor Mac.  Set them to whatever you like, nothing is ever going to change.  (At least, not until someone goes in and makes them multi-platform compatible.  At the moment, they only apply for Windows.)

Sorry guys. 

For our Windows users, those two parameters are used FOR THE CONSOLE ONLY.  Unless you use $CONSOLE in your program, they're not going to change anything at all for you either.  You might as well be using a Linux PC, as far as WIDTH and the 3rd and 4th parameter are concerned.

So...  You're a windows user.  Your program uses $CONSOLE.  What the heck does those last 2 parameters do for you?

They set the total width and height of your available console.

For example, let's try the following program:

Every time in the past, when I need to store something to file, I always used a user-defined type and wrote and read the contents to a file using INPUT and OUTPUT. Now starting to design the actual gradebook, I am a little stumped. Naturally, an array sounds useful for something like this. My initial thought is assigning every student a unique ID (UID), unknown to the user but used by me, so if the name changes or something of the sort, we still can line the grades with the proper name.

So, the thinking is UID, Grade or mark, and notes. I am not overly experienced using multi-dimensional arrays. Is there any issues resizing them using REDIM PRESERVE. Is there a better idea for keeping and using this information or storing it with INPUT/OUTPUT won't be overly taxing since I would have to overwrite the file every time I make an update? Using RANDOM sounds like I have to make all these decision on the front-end... I guess I am just looking for a nudge in the right direction since I am kinda inexperinced with this type of programming 

Thanks y'all

This is a QB compatible language for programming microprocessors. I have been using it for some time and can recommend it for its (relative) simplicity. So if you want to move on from arduinos (who likes C anyway) you can write you own controller programs in BASIC. As far as is possible it has the same instructions as QBasic.
I have attached my latest project. It reads the outside temperature (via a rf link) and displays it on an analog dial gauge. I got the enclosure from a charity shop.

Ever wish we could travel the world on a transporter beam? Well, we can't, so for now, let's stay home and play with COMMAND$...

SYNTAX: cmd$ = COMMAND$[(count%)]

USE: Passing arguments to other apps and drag and drop applications.

And as a bonus, if you act now, we'll throw in _COMMANDCOUNT to evaluate that count% variable.

Okay, let's get our demo of the day going...

Works for Windows, untested for Linux or Mac...

From the thread here, I had a couple of people message me about NOT and why I mentioned it was an oddball in the Order Of Operations (OOO).  Let me see if I can explain this simply, without confounding the issue..

Exponents are one of the first things we solve in our OOO.  Right?

And NOT is down near the end of our OOO.  Right?

So following those rules, write a program to parse and solve: 1 ^ NOT 2 ^ 3 AND 4

???   <-- Now how the heck DOES it calculate that???

The odd secret is NOT is both calculated FIRST, and near the LAST of our OOO.

Here's the trick I learned:  Put a beginning parentheses BEFORE your NOT, and the ending parentheses before any binary operators like AND, OR, EQV...

1 ^ NOT 2 ^ 3 AND 4 gets solved as:  1 ^ (NOT 2 ^ 3) AND 4

1 ^ (NOT 2 ^ 3) AND 4 makes sense to us.  Do the parentheses FIRST, even if NOT might be evaluated down low on the OOO.

You can't just say, "Solve it last," as sometimes, such as in this case, you have to solve it first before you can do the other operations.  1 raised to the WHAT power?   The (NOT 2 ^ 3)rd power!

Put a beginning parentheses BEFORE your NOT, and the ending parentheses before any binary operators like AND, OR, EQV.  <-- That's the rule for parsing and solving NOT properly.

_INSTRREV is an INSTR function, but in reverse! Instead of searching left to right, it searches from right to left.

SYNTAX _INSTRREV(seed%, string$, search$)

Where:

seed% is starting point in the string to begin the search.
string$ is the string to be searched.
search$ is the search term.

Note: The first parameter, seed%, is optional. We can also code it as: _INSTRREV(string$, search$)

Use: Parsing function.

So if we can already search a string forward with INSTR(), what's the benefit of using _INSTRREV()?

Glad you asked...

Let's say we have a page margin of 40 spaces wide. Here is our first string for that document...

a$ = "Pete and Steve walk into a bar. Steve blames Pete for not raising the bar higher."

Oops, that's longer than 40-characters? What do we do now Batman?

Well, simple "Stevey-boy" Wonder, we use the Bat-o-axe and chop it! (I have an old bat-o-axe around the house... Ouch! Hit by the bat-pan again!)

Well while I recover from being being badly bat-tered, let's take a short commercial break and see INSTR() vs  _INSTRREV() in action.

SYNTAX

For us Rednecks... I like ta BYVAL, Pat. I'd like a P.

For everyone else...

BYVAL

So all this really is is a way to tell the system we will be passing a variable in a library variable list by value rather than by reference. We are basically defining the passing mechanism.

So what's the difference you ask?

In short, passing by value passes the actual value of the variable to the sub-procedure, and back.

Passing by reference means we can mess with the variable name from the call list to the library, sub, or function, and modify the programming element underlying the argument in the calling code. The position in the list is all that matters.

Here is a sub example of passing two variables by reference...