Switch from GRAPHICS to Text Output

[Henko]

Excellent, it works now, so I could try to program a button on the screen that switches from text to graph and viceversa to see results of a general computation (graphical and text values) in real time. Do you know if with Smart Basic user can program a button that exists in both graphic and text output and that can be touched to see graphics or text, until touching the square STOP key in top left of SmartBasic screen app?
Thanks!
Matteo

Interface objects like buttons, fields, etc. are automatically visible and functional in both modes, text and graphics.

[sarossell]

Ah, that's good to know. Thanks Henko. I was under the impression that the graphics and text modes were exclusive, but I never tested it. So, graphics mode is for pixel oriented drawing then, but both can handle the rest of it?

[Henko]

I don't have the complete picture of what each of the the two modes are capable of. While the text mode handles interface objects well, the graphics mode does not show output produced by the simple PRINT statement.

I take sB and its documentation as it is. It's a real nice basic in my opinion, and i feel that the responsiveness of the support is unparallelled.

[sarossell]

You're absolutely right about the responsiveness of support. I can count on two fingers the number of times I've experienced such rapid and thorough support from any vendor, much less an independent programmer.

I have been pushing for more only because smart BASIC is so well conceived and implemented, and that is a damn rare thing. I would love to see it continue and grow (as well as the community surrounding it) to epic proportions if at all possible.

It's no small accomplishment what Mr. K has put together. To actually be able to compile apps for distribution written in BASIC is incredible. I once had a wonderful computer in the 1980s with so much potential, but it died an early death in the 8-bit evolution to 16 and 32 bit machines. smart BASIC embodies everything I enjoyed about that computer and more. I don't want to lose that again, so I've pressed for continued innovation and development.

In the end though, if there was never another update to sB, I'm grateful for all the amazing work Mr. K put into it and hope to be able to program with it for a long time to come. It would just be nice to be able to brag to my friends about the amazing ongoing development of an already stellar concept. I'm hoping to get my programming mojo back from the 80s and write some actual marketable apps in the near future. I'm finding it slow going though. But it's fun.

[Henko]

In the discussion about an ongoing development of sB, the business profit aspect for mr. K. has not been involved. The initial payment for sB is very, very low. After that the product does not generate any more income for the developer. Now, if the number of new buyers is decreasing due to saturation or new likewise products, it is logical that the developer starts to look for further profitable opportunities and put his effort in that direction. I can't blame him for puting sB in the maintenance phase.
Ask yourself how much you would - or anyone should - pay monthly to keep sB in full development phase?

[Mr. Kibernetik]

In the discussion about an ongoing development of sB, the business profit aspect for mr. K. has not been involved. The initial payment for sB is very, very low. After that the product does not generate any more income for the developer. Now, if the number of new buyers is decreasing due to saturation or new likewise products, it is logical that the developer starts to look for further profitable opportunities and put his effort in that direction. I can't blame him for puting sB in the maintenance phase.
Ask yourself how much you would - or anyone should - pay monthly to keep sB in full development phase?

Well, release of new software version is always an option. Usually it means the release of new, upgraded version with some of new features, like Photoshop v2, v3,... And of course these upgrades are not free. Only maintenance upgrades like v1.1, v1.2 are free. It is strange to demand something from a developer. Strictly speaking, developer is not obliged to release even maintenance versions.

But of course this is not about smart BASIC. Although it is already of version 5.x, it is still the same piece of software. It was made for iOS 5 and it is still working. Smart BASIC has grown up already long time ago, and its latest releases are maintenance releases. This does not mean that I lost interest in sB. It is already packed much more than I initially planned, and of course it has its limits. Also I have another projects to do. This does not mean that I am not interested in what users think about it and what improvements they would like to add to it. Maybe I will add them later, who knows. Maybe I will make another, better software wich will take all drawbacks of sB into account.

Anyway, the main purpose of smart BASIC is to be useful for its users, and I hope it will stay useful as long as possible. And - thank you for your comments!

[GeorgeMcGinn]

That was one of the points I tried so unelaquently made in the posts about putting an icon to link to a printing app.

It seems that apps are not treated the same as new releases of photoshop, where I expect to pay an upgrade fee. Does iTunes allow a developer to say that users can't automatically upgrade an App without paying extra?

The only way I have seen it where a developer needed to charge for an upgrade was to change the name of the product slightly, then say the old version will not be supported. Google did this with their QuickOffice suite. The changed the name, charged again for it, then dropped both in favor of keeping each as individual programs.

I tell you, if Printing, Microphone, SELECT CASE, and maybe a relational database was added, I would be willing to pay $15 for that ($25+ if a SQL-type of database was created). What I am saying is that yes, if the release is major, with the potential to make others more income on their products, you should call it something different, and say if you already own SB, $19.99, otherwise, $35. Something like that.

Because those who just purchased it and never had a upgrade (I purchased 5.6) but those who just bought it a week before the new version came out may screen bloody murder.

Oh, users do expect the product to work as advertised, so if it doesn't, and when I see a developer not care about fixing the product, iTunes does refund users for this, which I guess comes out of the developer's earnings. So some amount of minor bugs are expected to be part of it, but thinking about it after reading this post, the way iTunes handles it now is really unfair to the developer.

Call it ExpertBASIC or something different, so if you want those major improvements that everyone has been asking for, to me as a long time developer, the more features you give me to use in development, the better my product will be, the more I can charge, and I would expect to have to pay more or upgrade what I have to get those more advanced features.

You would have to figure out how much your time is worth, and how many of the new units you need to sell at X dollars to get the value of the time you put in back.

So if you decide to put the top 5 requests in, call it ExpertBASIC (i won't require any royalties on the name ) I would pay extra for that.

Quite frankly, I was very surprised that I paid less than $5 when I read everything it said it could do. And now I sometimes do feel a little guilty, but I'm for a major release with the right modifications and having to pay for the product again, either buy an upgrade price, or calling it something different.

George.

[sarossell]

I agree with George completely. I would happily pay for a major update. In fact, I would pay for incremental updates if each was just a tad bit better and more capable (at a lower price point of course). Several versions of BASIC I have used offer a free version with limitations and a more advanced version with varying methods of payment. This might work well as a marketing tool to get people interested and then once they see the active forum and regular developer involvement, they would more easily gravitate toward an "Expert" paid version. I for one would have been hooked right away and would not have flinched if I found that the "Expert" version cost as much as $49. Maybe you could call it smarter BASIC. {wink}{wink}

One thing I always appreciated about Gambas BASIC was that they commit to a free quarterly update schedule. The updates are minor, but it's a nice expectation that the company is fully committed to the continued improvement of the product on a predictable schedule. Then, every couple of years they release a major paid update. Unfortunately, they require a yearly subscription and that doesn't work for me. I'm not a fan of regular enforced subscriptions. I prefer to read about the updates and decide for myself when and if it's appropriate to pay for the newer version.

Bottom line, if I knew there would be regularly scheduled free quarterly updates and yearly major releases at a substantially higher price than the current cost, you would have my money every year without hesitation. After all, with an active forum, a dedicated and readily accessible developer, a built-in help file, a procedural document for SDK, two manuals, and the ability to create your own App Store apps, how could anyone complain about having to pay a bit for it? Heck, I spent $70 yesterday in cigars beer and food just watching the NFL playoffs.

[GeorgeMcGinn]

I read your other post, and yes, you can display a button with text and even put within the text of a button a FIELD statement and wait for a response.

Display button
Display text in Button
Open a Input FIELD inside button
Wait for something to be typed
Press Button
Then capture input from FIELD inside button.

Believe it or not I do have code that does that and I'll have to find it. Rbytes has seen this code and button as well in some recently sent programs I asked him for help in.

I use it to force the user to type a Y that he/she acknowledges the action of pressing the button, or "N" they do not want the action to happen when pressing the button.

Give me 30 minutes and I'll find it. It's in a lib, so I'll try to put some code around it so you can see what I mean.

I use it to say "Pressing this button will overlay your current file, are you sure Y/N?" Then there is a FIELD that opens within the button that a loop waits for a reply. If you try and press the button without typing in anything, I think I programmed it to do nothing but keep the button and input box on the screen.

Sometimes you need to write some wierd stuff! But it works in SmartBASIC. As Scott says, "It Rocks!"

George

Thanks very much for your reply! I will try to write , with your hints, a default source code for my calculations and simulations projects able to show both graphical and textual (numbers and texts) results during execution, without stopping the code execution when I want to see a numeric value while seeing the graph of the calculation.
Thanks again for help.
Regards
Matteo

[GeorgeMcGinn]

EDITED: The reason the process doesn't quit is I removed the button "quit" and there was a drawinfobar at the top with an X for "quit2."

Sorry, a little more than 30 minutes.

I was in a lot of pain after going to the doctor and doing some tests and that, and my pain med put me to sleep.

Here is the code. I had to strip a lot of other stuff away so you can see what is basically going on.

You'll see a button with a message, and within it there is a FIELD BOX where you can type a Y or N or nothing at all.

Normally based on your decision the button will cause specific processing to happen, but this is just an example, and needs some more code.

But here you can see how you can put a FIELD inside a BUTTON and wait for a result.

I hope this helps.

George,

Code: Select all

GRAPHICS
OPTION ANGLE DEGREES
OPTION BASE 1
OPTION KEYBOARD ON
SET ORIENTATION LANDSCAPE

GRAPHICS CLEAR .2,.5,1

GET SCREEN SIZE W,H
dev$=DEVICE_TYPE$()
iostest=0                        ' set to 1 to test other iOS devices on iPad
IF iostest THEN
   dev$=""
   W=667!H=375                   ' to test iPhone 6
ENDIF

'*** scale factor for other iOS devices

'=== sw,sh is Screen (W)idth, (H)eight
sw=W!sh=H!ratw=W/1024!rath=H/768!vadj=20!hadj=30!cr$=CHR$(10)
rw=ratw!rh=rath!calc=TIME()!cr$=CHR$(10)
BUTTON.SELECTED=FALSE

REM *** HERE, NORMALLY ONLY EXECUTE IF A SPECICIF CONDITION IS TRUE
'IF FILE_EXISTS(MyFile$) THEN
   GOSUB WarnMsg
   IF Answer$="N"            THEN endprog
   IF BUTTON_PRESSED("quit") THEN endprog
'ENDIF

REM *** DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU WERE GOING TO DO IF THE ANSWER WAS YES

GOTO endprog

WarnMsg:
'-----------------------------------------------------------------
'*** Display generic warning message and wait for a valid response
'
    BUTTON.SELECTED=FALSE
    DRAW FONT SIZE 21
    DRAW FONT NAME "CourierNewPS-BoldMT"
    DRAW COLOR 0,0,0
    FILL COLOR 1,1,0
    BUTTON "warn" TEXT "*** Please reply (Y/N) – press message to continue: "  AT 100+vadj,280*rh+hadj SIZE 800,40
    FIELD "answ" TEXT Answer$ AT 840+vadj,284*rh+hadj SIZE 35,30
    DRAW FONT SIZE 14
    DRAW COLOR 1,1,1
    FILL COLOR 1,1,1

    DO
       IF BUTTON_PRESSED("warn") THEN
          BUTTON.SELECTED=TRUE
       ENDIF
       IF BUTTON_PRESSED("quit") THEN
          BUTTON.SELECTED=TRUE
          GOTO EXIT_WarnMsg
       ENDIF
       SLOWDOWN
    UNTIL FIELD_CHANGED(Answer$) OR BUTTON.SELECTED

    Answer$=FIELD_TEXT$("answ")
    Answer$=CAPSTR$(Answer$)
    IF Answer$<>"Y" and Answer$<>"N" THEN GOSUB WarnMsg

EXIT_WarnMsg:
    RETURN

'*** End Of Program Routine
endprog:
    STOP