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**Tom Hanlin** · 25 Sep 2001, 07:43 AM

You would find PB/CC very easy to understand, as it uses a very similar design to the traditional DOS BASICs. However, in a large part, that is because PB/CC is for writing "console" programs, which use what look like DOS windows. If you want full Windows GUI support, you'd want the PB/DLL compiler, which would take a little more getting used to.

For recommended books, check the Frequently Asked Questions forum.

For a better idea of how PowerBASIC code works, why not download the sample programs? You can find the complete sets of PB/CC and PB/DLL sample programs, and lots more, in the Downloads area here:
http://www.powerbasic.com/files/pub/pbwin/

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

**Brad D Byrne** · 25 Sep 2001, 08:02 AM

There is no other compiler available -- anywhere--
that will let you access Win32API as easily as PB/DLL!!

PowerBasic has allowed me to continue to write and think
as a DOS programmer----- with-in the windows enviornment---

You will be very Happy with PB/DLL B

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Let me add----DDT may drive you crazy at first---- But,
Those problems are "Windows" Problems, not "PB" Problems--
PowerBasic's DDT, just makes it easier to learn the
SDK architecture.

[This message has been edited by Brad D Byrne (edited September 25, 2001).]

**Bern Ertl** · 25 Sep 2001, 08:27 AM

There is no better way to learn than to experiment with sample
code and ask questions when you don't understand something. These
forums and all the wonderful people who contribute to them helped
me get over the Windows hump with PB/DLL in a matter of a few months
(not to say I'm an expert now, but for the most part I GET IT now).

I floundered around with VB for a long time before PB/DLL. My eyes
would just glaze over after five minutes of reading any of the heavy tomes
available for learning VB.

I would personally encourage you to get PB/DLL and start experimenting
with the abundance of source code here. You'll learn a heck of a lot
faster than by reading any book.

Also, download Borje's excellent POFFS offline search engine to research
your questions.

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Bernard Ertl

[This message has been edited by Bern Ertl (edited September 25, 2001).]

**Gösta H. Lovgren** · 25 Sep 2001, 08:31 AM

Thanks Tom & Brad. I'll dl some code and look at it. Good idea.

Tom, your name is very familiar. Did you used to monitor a BBS forum
or something quite awhile back? Before here was a Windows
to worry about. It seems to me I bought several disks of
Basic routines from you(?)

Anyway, thx replies.

Swede

------------------
Gösta H. Lovgren
http://www.SwedesDock.com
http://www.PondersBible.com
[email protected]

**Russ Srole** · 25 Sep 2001, 08:51 AM

Gosta,

I've been making the exact same transition over the last 12 months
and found the non-linear nature to be a bit confusing. I certainly
am a big fan of PBdll, but also think you should look into EzGui.

You can download the free designer at www.ezgui.com, and when Chris
Boss gets his international stuff in place then you can buy the
real one. The free designer generates DDT code, which is a big help,
but the real designer has a whole scheme (dlls) that encapsulates
the most common API commands into a really easy and concise API.
I don't program without in now.

Good Luck,
Russ Srole

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**Borje Hagsten** · 25 Sep 2001, 09:31 AM

Hej Gösta,

Going from DOS to VB is a terrible experience. Not only hard to understand
where working code shall be put, but realizing a simple "Hello World" app'
installation needs more than one diskette can give you horrible nightmares..

Going from DOS to PB for Windows is much more fun. The PB/DLL compiler has
something called DDT that makes the transition from DOS to Windows a lot
easier. It sort of acts like easy-to-use wrappers for the Windows Application
Programming Interface, API, which otherwise can be a bit tricky to understand
in the beginning, when coming from DOS world.

Best thing about PowerBasic compilers, beside the fact they produce
extremely tight and fast code, is these support forums. Here we have,
without competition, the best support team I have ever had the fortune
to meet in the form of two extremely skilled and helpful fellows, Tom
Hanlin and Lance Edmunds. Those two alone makes PB worth gold, IMHO..

BTW, POFFS, mentioned by Bern, is a PowerBasic OFF-line Search program,
with many thousands of Q&A and source code samples, compiled from posting
to these forums. You can find it on http://www.tolken99.com/pb/pbfile_e.htm
along with some other PB stuff I have posted there.

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**Tom Hanlin** · 25 Sep 2001, 10:10 AM

Thanks, Borje! We've had plenty of opportunities to enjoy your fine contributions
to the PowerBASIC community, also.

Gösta, yes, I used to be quite active on the BBSes and Fido-era networks. I
specialized in freeware and shareware libraries for BASICs and other languages:
AdvBas, BasWiz, AABas, BasUpd, PBClone, QBWiz, AsmWiz, PBWiz, PasWiz, ObjTool,
QBTiny, and so forth and so on. These days, I'm keeping busy enough with
PowerBASIC!

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

**Steve Hutchesson** · 25 Sep 2001, 02:38 PM

Gösta,

With your background in normal procedural programming in DOS,
writing code in PowerBASIC will be a lot more familiar than an
environment like Visual Basic. The console compiler will be very
familiar as the dialect of basic is highly compatible with older
basic code, even though it is a true high performance compiler
in 32 bit.

The real monster is the architecture of Windows itself, where in DOS
you had direct control of the screen and coded your own loops to
base a program from, Windows has a different architecture which
is basically a windowing system that communicates through the
operating system by sending messages to different windows.

PowerBASIC simplified this complexity when it introduced the DDT
system and this makes the shift from DOS to Windows a lot less
painful. It will allow you to create dialog style applications
in a reasonably short time. As you get more familiar with the
architecture of Windows there is the full set of internal API
functions to play with and once you get the feel of it, you can do
far more things and a lot easier than in DOS.

Having PowerBASIC also means that you can still use VB for interface
development and write fast procedural DLLs for it so all in all,
PowerBASIC will work well for you once you get used to it.

Regards,

[email protected]

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**Gösta H. Lovgren** · 28 Sep 2001, 05:17 PM

Thanks all your replies. It has given me the confidence to make
the jump/ I will likely do it this week.

And Tom I recall buying stuff from you and reading your code
for tips. IIRC, it was even before QuickBasic came out. Must be
close to 15 years ago now.

One more question, If I may. I have a <b>bunch</b> of stuff
I have written that have a HUGE amount of data in flat file
format. Will I be able to access those file with a GUI interface?

THat's probably not clear. What I want to do is read/write to
those existing files with a new Windows interface without
having to rewrite the file structures. IOW I guess what I am
asking is will I be able to continue using flat files as I
did with PDS? Building my own access indexes, etc.?

Or will I be locked into what appears to me to be an overly
complex table type system my friend (who is trying to make the
jump to VB) is fighting?

TIA - Gösta

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Gösta H. Lovgren
http://www.SwedesDock.com
http://www.PondersBible.com
[email protected]

**Bern Ertl** · 29 Sep 2001, 07:17 PM

Yes, you can read/write data files using any format you dream up.
There is no reason you would have to change your data file format.

PB allows three modes of disk I/O:

Sequential access files
Random access files
Binary access files

Search these forums for OPEN and you should see more examples
than you can read in a week I'd guess....

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Bernard Ertl

**Michael Mattias** · 30 Sep 2001, 04:35 AM

The real monster is the architecture of Windows itself..

I hope you meant "monster of a misdset change" rather than the Windows architecture itself.

I just love the Windows architecture, and often wonder how much better it could be if only Microsoft had not wasted so much talent developing Microsoft Word(r), one of the worst word processors on the planet, and the talent wasted in all MS applications adding cute little puppy dogs and old men asking me if I want more help or 'suggesting' my next actions....

**Steve Hutchesson** · 1 Oct 2001, 04:33 AM

Michael,

I think from memory that I just about went blind and mad about
10 - 11 years ago when I started on the SDK for win3.0 My head
stopped hurting a few months later after I have learnt the
basic architecture but it was definitely a brain bender at the
time.

Fortunately the tools and toys now are far better than then and
the transition is somewhat less painful to 32 bit windows code.

I vote with my feet and use a 1992 version of WORD, last native
code version, loads instantly and does more than the "paper clip"
version as well.

I don't mind the architecture of a message driven windowing system
but there are enough irritations to take the fun out of it, bugz,
lousy documentation, unnecessary complexity from lousy code design
and of course the "policy" of Microsoft in keeping it that way.

Regards,

[email protected]

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**David J Walker** · 1 Oct 2001, 07:36 AM

Gosta
I am still converting from PDS to PB.
If you are going to PBCC, you will probably be amazed how easy it is to convert much of your code (I was). The majority of it ran straight off, the only bits I had to really work at were some display functions written in assembler, & some custom mouse code.
All the rest was just search & replace. Then all my memory hassles, etc. just disappeared. Impressive!
But you'll miss the environment, especially the debugger.
I dont know how well this works with PBDLL however, I shall be finding out soon.

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**Michael Mattias** · 1 Oct 2001, 08:11 AM

I don't mind the architecture of a message driven windowing system
but there are enough irritations to take the fun out of it, bugz,
lousy documentation, unnecessary complexity from lousy code design..

Huh? Which Win32 API you been working with? The one from Microsoft?

Doc? If only the PB documentation were as good as the SDK documentation!!

Bugs? I can't find any bugs in the Windows calls (except my own when I call Windows incorrectly)

Complexity? Well, maybe my years of writing mainframe stuff have made Windows seem easier, but all those options = lots of programmer power. Who was it( Winston Churchill?) who said, "Give us the tools, we'll finish the job?"

Lousy design? As I said before, I think the WIn32 API is a great tool, and woujld be even better if MS had not wasted time and money to create "Word".

and of course the "policy" of Microsoft in keeping it that way.

Strongly disagree, but that should be obvious from my other comments.

MCM

**Tom Hanlin** · 1 Oct 2001, 09:21 AM

And Tom I recall buying stuff from you and reading your code
for tips. IIRC, it was even before QuickBasic came out. Must be
close to 15 years ago now.

Your memory is excellent. I believe my AdvBas library for IBM
BASCOM 1.0/2.0 and Microsoft BASCOM 5.35? was first released in 1985.
The compilers were a short step from GWBASIC: horrible, really. Then
again, if I'd had PB/DOS 3.5 at the time, I might never had gotten
started writing libraries...

One more question, If I may. I have a <b>bunch</b> of stuff
I have written that have a HUGE amount of data in flat file
format. Will I be able to access those file with a GUI interface?

Oh yeah. Absolutely. The interface doesn't have anything to do with
the file handling. File handling in PB/CC and PB/DLL is, on the whole,
much more flexible than the old DOS BASICs-- although the FIELD statement
is obsolete. Record-oriented file handling is now done through user-
defined TYPEs instead. It's a pretty simple conversion to make, though,
and will make your program more efficient. And you won't have to change
your actual file format at all.

By the way, the UBB forum software uses [square] brackets for codes,
rather than the less-than / greater-than symbols used with HTML. Check
out the UBB code chart, here:
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/forums/ubbcode.html

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

**Scott Turchin** · 1 Oct 2001, 03:11 PM

Tom weren't you related to UltraShell at one point in time?
That was by far, *the* absolute best tool I ever used wiht Dos programming....
Besides PB/DOS that is hehe, PB/Dos rocked...still does for Dos stuff....

As for non-linear stuff, I've been doing PB for wh at, 2, 3 years now and I'm no expert at it, but what is NICE is that there is almost NO problem any of us have come across that cannot be solved by someone up here on the BBS...

And honestly speaking, that is probably 50% of why I stuck with PB...

Sure, fast internet connections allow faster downloading of bloatware, and bloatware is easy to create these days (Just ask MS!), but still, when my TOTAL app, all files included is less than 500k and has a 350k bitmap in it...that speaks for itself...

(And guys, my software is not self-destructive, it's fun to dream about but it is not)...

Scott

------------------
Scott Turchin
MCSE, MCP+I
Computer Creations Software
http://www.tngbbs.com/ccs

**Tom Hanlin** · 2 Oct 2001, 07:12 AM

Related to UltraShell, hmm. Not by birth! Although, UltraShell is an EllTech
product, and I did work for EllTech for some years. And UltraShell is sold by
Information Management Systems, which also sells my former shareware library,
PBWiz. So, I suppose it's my second cousin, twice removed, on my computer's
side.

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

**Gösta H. Lovgren** · 4 Oct 2001, 03:27 AM

Bern said:

"Yes, you can read/write data files using any format you dream up.
There is no reason you would have to change your data file format."

I'm not concerned about the file format so much as I am about
output format. ie printing to the screen (I made extensive use
of Tony Elliot's NovaScreen in PDS and am unsure about being able
to do similar stuff in Windows) and organizing the data.
What I think has happened is my friend has gotten himself
mired in something called Access, which appears to use a complex
rigid relational database fomat for use in VB. And this, along with my
own feeble efforts at deciphering VB, has made me very wary
of Windows Basic.

In any case I can see these forums will be a GREAT help when
I get PB (ordered the Windows version over the last weekend).
Much like the MicroHelp PDS forum was in the last century. It's
very difficult self teaching a new language by yourself.

------------------
Gösta H. Lovgren
http://www.SwedesDock.com
http://www.PondersBible.com
[email protected]

**Mike Jenkins** · 8 Oct 2001, 09:02 PM

Gösta,

Good move, getting on board PB/DLL. I'm a self-taught, untrained
DOS programmer, who started writing shareware 15 years ago,
knowing just enough about programming to get by with PowerBasic
for DOS, which made text-based programming very easy even for an
amateur programmer like me.

I finally decided to try writing code for Windows, and bought
PB/DLL 6.0 about a year ago. I have to admit that it took me
about 2 months of reading and re-reading the PBDLL manual from
cover to cover several times, and key portions about 10 times,
before I began to get even a glimmering of how to write even
the simplest code for Windows, which seemed totally illogical
and non-linear to me, unlike DOS programming, which was mostly
pure logic, "no prior experience needed."

However, once I began to get a slight understanding of how
code-writing with PBDLL works (which is obviously MUCH easier
than any other approach to Windows programming), things began
to come together quickly. And I would also highly recommend
Chris Boss' EZGUI, which took me a few hours to figure out, but
once I did, allowed me to design the whole GUI layout of my
program in one evening! (Saving countless hours of writing the
GUI code myself -- EZGUI generates the code for you, and you
just paste it into your program. That's the freeware version,
which I started with, and haven't been willing to change from
to the paid version, which I hear is even better, but different,
as I don't want to start over -- But I'll get the paid version
for my next project, and you would probably do well to start
with it, rather than the freeware version.)

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how quickly you can start
writing Windows code, with PBDLL and EZGUI, once you get your
feet wet.

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