Umm...

Our first mystery command!  I honestly have no idea what it is, where it came from, who added it to the keyword list or in the IDE, or what the heck it's supposed to do for us.  Checking the wiki, I found no entry for it..

Our word of the day is based off the syntax highlighter in the IDE, and for some reason there's both an ERDEV and a ERDEV$ which get highlighted as a keyword.

Anyone with any idea of what this is, where it comes from, and when/how we'd make use of it, kindly feel free to speak up on it.  As it is, I'm afraid that this time even the mighty Steve has to hang his head in shame -- I have no idea what the heck this beast is!!

I'm curious about why this shows up so often as the answer for a number that is nearly zero.

For example,

a = 1 / 256
Print a

(I get 3.90625E-03)

Is this just a matter of using an appropriate variable type?

So this is what I've came up with, and it works...

Just some digital doodling.  Generate a simple forest landscape of leafy trees.

Well let's say maybe list 3 to 5, or a few, whatever. No order needed, unless ranking is one of your positive traits!

For me, it would be tenacity, interest in the projects I'm involved with, drive, mechanics, and somewhat creativity. What I consider to be  negative traits would be typing speed, about half that of a pro, being impatient with documentation, organizing works in folders, variable naming, and consistency (I like to do projects differently.) One that I used to love but have been missing over the years, the ability to keep a program straight in my head, as well as on the screen. That was cool.

Pete

Although there's no install, BASIC Anywhere Machine is intended to be "download and make it your own", store it where you want, use it as you want, etc. 

There is a bunch of stuff in BAM that makes it what it is and makes it work.

But there is a bunch of stuff in BAM that is content created in it (BASIC programs, tasks, and whatever else that is created as part of using BAM.)

As part of making BAM your own (any version of it that exists), you ought to have a way to remove the fluff and be left with nothing else but the stuff that makes BAM work.

Enter the pending "Powerwash" feature.

Whatever version of BAM you nab that has that feature, click the "Factory Refresh" (or Factory Reset?)  "Powerwash", and all of the fluff is purged.  You are left with nothing but a clean BASIC Anywhere Machine, ready to go for your new project(s).

But once you've made it your own (i.e. powerwashed and have your programs and tasks/etc. in there), you need to be able to upgrade it when I've rolled out a new version of BAM with some cool new stuff and fixes.

Enter the pending "BAM System Update" process.

Just open up the new version of BAM, and open your BAM instance, then drag and drop the package of "architectural stuff" from the new version of BAM to your BAM instance, and you are upgraded.

Now, what if BASIC Anywhere Machine has not kept to date with the latest version of TW (TiddlyWiki), so BAM has fallen a bit behind, but you for whatever reason want your BAM version to be on the latest version of TW?

Enter the already existing "TW System Update" service.

As per the existing Upgrading process, we just drag a BAM instance into the online upgrader and download the result of the process: everything that makes BAM work is now in a new version of TW.  Well, as long as the latest version of TW has done something to break backward compatibility ...

Something like that ...

First some background...

Earlier this year, I threw together a utility / library-ish thing for mapping game controllers and keys, and reading input. 

It let the user map controls for upto 8 players, so I called it "Basic Input Mapper, Octo Edition".

But now I am increasing the number of players to 16.

If octo is 8, what is 16? 

I did some googling on numerical prefixes, and found a few contenders: 

• sexdeca
  
• sedecim
  
• hekkaideka
  
• hexakaideca
  

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_prefix
  
• https://wiki.c2.com/?NumericalPrefixes
  
• https://phrontistery.info/numbers.html
  
• https://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyh...fixes.html
  

If two parameters are given to "_NEWIMAGE()" and any graphics command is called (in the program below "PSET") the program gives an error box which, if not taken seriously, the program hangs for a moment then terminates, writing on the terminal "killed". The source code was something I found from the "dot-com" forum that was meant for "QBJS" and not on Linux.

Small demo of Googly eyes drifting around the screen.  The eyes look toward the direction they are moving.  Just a small demo that may help some learn to use _PUTIMAGE and move images around the screen in different ways.  I tried to comment more than usual.

- Dav

A keyword which simply tells you if your program is topmost and has focus in your OS.  For those who don't understand what I'm talking about with topmost, let me give you a simple example:

1) Open your file explorer and click the qb64pe icon and start up a fresh instance of the IDE.  It'll pop up on your screen on top of any other windows which you may have open -- your browser, the file explorer, and whatever else was open on your desktop.  At this point, it's the *topmost* program on your screen, and it has focus.  When you hit keys on the keyboard, you'll be typing into the IDE and not your web browser.

2) Now, click on your file explorer once more and open notepad.  Start typing with the keyboard and watch as the letters appear in the notepad text area, rather than in QB64's IDE.  Notepad is now the topmost program and has focus, so QB64 has lost it.

Now let's say you have a program that you might want to respond differently, regarding whether it has focus or not.  How do you detect whether your program is the focus of the user, or not?

With _WINDOWHASFOCUS.  (Well, at least for Windows and Linux users.  The keyword is not yet supported on MAC, according to our wiki currently.)

Example from the wiki:
 
DO
    IF _WINDOWHASFOCUS THEN
        COLOR 15, 6
        CLS
        PRINT "*** Hi there! ***"
    ELSE
        COLOR 0, 7
        CLS
        PRINT "(ain't nobody looking...)"
    END IF
    _DISPLAY
    _LIMIT 30
LOOP


A simple example, where the program will PRINT "*** Hi there! ***" on the screen if the window has focus, and will print "(ain't nobody looking...)" when it doesn't.

QB64 Wiki Entry: _WINDOWHASFOCUS - QB64 Phoenix Edition Wiki