PowerBASIC - You Speak... PowerBASIC Listens!

[Steve Rossell]

How can we improve PowerBASIC? I'll bet you have a great hunch, so share it with us. A new feature suggestion? An entirely new killer product? We really want to know what have to say. Don't wait. Do it now! Click on over and talk to us at http://www.powerbasic.com/support/request.html.

[Rodney Hicks]

This thread should be a 'sticky' IMO.
I know there's a link on the Home page, but quick access while in the fora might be something to consider.

[Steve Rossell]

This thread should be a 'sticky' IMO.
I know there's a link on the Home page, but quick access while in the fora might be something to consider.

Done.

[Michael Mattias]

If you want suggestions for improvement of Peer Support Forums and/or documentation... both of which are part of your product, you should probably have

A) A listbox "product" selection for "Peer Support Forums."

B) Either a listbox selection or a "Documentation" checkbox.

Also, you should think of some way to present suggestions which are being made for BOTH PB/Win and PB/CC, since about 80% (DDT statements excluded) of the syntax is identical.

For example, string handling, arithmetic handling, array handling, file handling, COM and COMM handling and lots of other functions are specific [Windows'] compiler-agnostic.

MCM

[Bob Zale]

If you make a suggestion for PB/WIN, and it also applies to PB/CC, I'm fairly certain we'll figure it out without additional help. If you make a suggestion tagged PB/CC concerning the PB/CC documentation, it's fairly likely we'll understand that part, also. If there was a single tag for "documentation", it would be far more ambiguous. I think we'll leave it the way it is. It's not likely we need a longer, more complicated list any more than we need 257 forum sub-sections. Thanks for thinking of us, regardless.

Bob Zale (The Spin-Doctor)
PowerBASIC Inc.

[Michael Mattias]

If you don't ever have a bad idea, you are not coming up with enough ideas, period.

I see this from my clients all the time... they don't suggest something because they think it will be "too hard" (read: too expensive) or THEY can't figure out "how" to do it.

I try to tell them, I can tell you what it will cost and you can decide if it's worth it. They are often surprised how little it will actually cost them. And I also tell them if I can't figure out "how" to do it, they should reconsider their choice of vendor. (This one usually surprises them, that a 'software guy' would admit he cannot do 'everything').

When you are having software created 'on spec' for you - or asking for new features in a packaged product, I believe in asking for the stars. If I have to settle for the moon, I'm still WAY ahead.


MCM

[Gary Beene]

IDE "Email" Option

I'll put this in your request page as well, but I suggest that you add a Help sub-menu item called "Email PB Inc" (or some such title), that will open up the user's default email client, preaddressed to send an email to [email protected].

I do that with all of my apps and my users take full advantage of it. I almost always put it on the toolbar as well.

There's nothing that cuts your responses down (way down) than asking the user to leave their work flow to send you a message. When they're in the IDE and the thought occurs to them - that's the time to give them a VERY EASY way to send you their thoughts!

Gary

[Michael Mattias]

Gary, Gary, Gary ..... you did not ask for the stars!

  File 
     NEW
     OPEN 
     yadda yadda  
    ...
     ============
     Create email to support dept with current file and all #INCLUDED files as attachments
    (or "Zip, attach and email current file and all included files ....)
    .......

MCM

[George Bleck]

I want a PB for Apple iPhone.

Shooting for the stars enough? That;s more like shooting for the next universe, but hey!

I love my iPhone and can't live without it...wish I could program in PB for it

[Rodney Hicks]

Gary
Your request is almost there already, if you go to the Help-PowerBasic Website.
Three clicks to send the e-mail, and a couple of clicks back isn't too, too bad!

This may be more like an asteroid with an orbit in sync with us as compared to the Moon and Stars, but it works.

[Gary Beene]

I'm going to quit drinking water while I read the forums. I almost choked and then spit on my screen when I read the humorous comments following mine. Clearly, as a poor boy from Oklahoma, I never imagined the heavens could be as bountiful as you guys have imagined. But, I'm learning.

How about a speed-dial on my cell phone direct to Bob Zale? Can I get a daily download of the forum content to my local POFFs database? Can we open source the PowerBASIC compiler? I'd also really like a direct neural interface to the IDE.

I really want a book titled "What Gary Beene wants/needs to know", with a page/chapter for each day of the rest of my life !!!

Wow, thinking outside the box is hard work. I'm glad we have a zillion (+/- a few thousand) dedicated forum members to help me think.

[Michael Mattias]

This kind of "feeding off each other" is what happens when suggestions are shared.

Right now the way "the system" works is everyone sends in ideas independently, and the only people who "kick 'em around" are the folks in Florida. If they don't get any "new blood" in that group, you end up with... West Virginia.

[Michael Mattias]

I guess I should forget about that cherry job as special assistant to Gov. Manchin, huh?

[Theo Gottwald]

Ok, have just sent 3 suggestions.

Maybe nothing new, but hopefully it will be heared before the end of the Mayan calendar .

What will I need living Objects for, if really on the 12/2011 the big comet strikes earth soon after?

While our politicians are still busy recruiting new torture knights for their politic-games instead of looking for the global future of the planet.

Anyway if it will not happen, my three suggestions will be a important extension to the Powerbasic of the Future.

[Jim Robinson]

IDE for Win/CC

I would like to see a unified Win/CC IDE. It could read the #COMPILER metastatement to work with Win or CC source.

It would make it that much easier for those of us who use both compilers on a regular basis.

[George Bleck]

Not only a unified Win/CC IDE but a unified "suite" that you can purchase, upgrade, etc. I know some people buy the products a la carte, but I always buy both as do others I am sure.

It would be nice to buy Win/CC/Forms product as a dev suite that installs as an integrated product, one license, one install, one patch, one directory, one IDE.

[Scott Slater]

Not only a unified Win/CC IDE but a unified "suite" that you can purchase, upgrade, etc. I know some people buy the products a la carte, but I always buy both as do others I am sure.

It would be nice to buy Win/CC/Forms product as a dev suite that installs as an integrated product, one license, one install, one patch, one directory, one IDE.

:iagree:

[Mark Strickland]

Please -- No VB "tricks"

Recently I have just been doing some work with VB Express. The code completion drives me crazy and I don't find it very useful. You don't need any of those features for me.

[Mark Strickland]

More stuff

Some "random" ideas :

1) Personally I would prefer NOT to combine PBWin and CC but I do own both.

2) How about a more automatic way to create tool tips.

3) Automatic creation of a CC program to run as a service.

4) A built in feature/function to minimize to the tray.

I know much of this can be done with a little code but I always have to go searching to add these little touches because I don't do it very often.

[Cliff Nichols]

I just sent off a couple ideas, and when I came back and re-read the forum I think a few have been suggested already.
(Some minor, some MAJOR....depending on the background you come from and would like to handle)

PB does a PHENOMENAL job satisfying its customers in my mind (meaning us the users and we provide tools for future users because of what PB gave us)


That said, I would think the top priorities (from my lil field) would be.
[list = 1][*] Gary wrote "a Help sub-menu item called "Email PB Inc" (or some such title)," and I seconded that without realizing the idea was offered up already[*] Mark offered up a few nice ideas for a future version that tooltips be easily added to controls. (yes there is some PHENOMENAL code in the source code forums, but would be nice to see added to the Newby arsenal )[*]I think George got it right with

Not only a unified Win/CC IDE but a unified "suite" that you can purchase, upgrade, etc. I know some people buy the products a la carte, but I always buy both as do others I am sure.

but Mark is right with

Please -- No VB "tricks"

[/list]


For the PB guys its a hard list I know...but if ANYONE can do it PB will be the one to do it CORRECTLY