© 1-November-2000 Cameron Arnott All Rights Reserved |
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Letter from the Editor: | Back to the Top |
Greetings one and all, Well another month has passed and what a busy month it's been. We now have a total of 207 official members in the group, of which 28 are new members this month. There are a total of 10,689 messages in the LBnews mailing list here at egroups.com, of which this month boasts the record total of 1149 messages posted to our mailing list. Carl has now got Liberty Basic Merchandise for sale "Liberty BASIC 2" T-shirts, mugs and mouse pads for sale! !Attention! SPECIAL reduced price of the great flaming "Liberty BASIC 2" T-Shirt. This is a good quality shirt and a bargain at the special price of $10.99 (not including $4.00 shipping in the US). Special price will remain until LB 2.0 ships! The Liberty BASIC CoWeb site has now been re-launched. The new site is password protected to prevent that awful vandalizism we experienced earlier this year, so if you want to take part, just email Carl Gundel and ask for an account. The new site is located at http://libertybasic.swiki.net It gives me Great pleasure to announce "2001, A Liberty BASIC Odyssey" is now open for entries. The contest is to help promote Liberty BASIC, show people what can be done using Liberty BASIC and how. It's also a showcase for people show off their contributions to the Liberty BASIC community. All nominations and submissions must be in by the 1st July 2001 (no extensions). You can enter or nominate as many times as you like, however when it comes time to vote you only get one vote in each category. The voting polls will open at lbnews after that and will remain open until the 1st October 2001; every member of lbnews is eligible to vote in all categories. Winners will then be announced by the 14th October 2001 The prizes: The winners of each section get the choice of either a "Liberty BASIC 2" T-shirt and Mug or A Liberty BASIC registration (for the current version at the time the competition closes.) ALL prizes are being donated to the "2001, A Liberty BASIC Odyssey" contest by Carl Gundel. The prizes are Carl's way of thanking everyone for all the work and effort that goes into helping the Liberty BASIC community grow, and for all the help which is provided in all forms. Here are the categories available to all to enter: Best LB content Web site: Owners of the web site can't nominate themselves, they have to be nominated by at least one member of the mailing list. Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Best LB content Web site nomination. In the message URL for the web site/page and an email address of the owner. Best LB newsletter contribution: The author of the article can't nominate themselves. They have to be nominated by at least one member of the mailing list. Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Best LB newsletter contribution nomination. In the message state the newsletter issue number, article header and the author. Best mailing list contribution: The author of the article can't nominate themselves. They have to be nominated by at least one member of the mailing list. Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Best LB mailing list contribution nomination. In the message state the subject of the message being nominated, the date of the message and the author. Logo Design Suggestions: Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Logo Design Suggestion nomination. Then attach your graphic to the message. Best Utility program written in Liberty BASIC: This section has 3 skill levels so that the playing field is even Beginner: Intermediate: Advanced: All entries are to be written solely using Liberty BASIC commands (you are only allowed to access the standard Windows DLL's, i.e., no third party DLL's). No TKN files will be accepted. You nominate your experience level of programming. Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Best Utility program Then attach your source code to your message. Best Game written in Liberty BASIC: This section has 3 skill levels so that the playing field is even Beginner: Intermediate: Advanced: All entries are to be written solely using Liberty BASIC commands (you are only allowed to access the standard Windows DLL's, i.e., no third party DLL's). No TKN files will be accepted. You nominate your experience level of programming. Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Best Game Then attach your source code to your message. Outstanding contribution to the Liberty BASIC community: You can't nominate yourself. You have to be nominated by at least one member of the mailing list. Please send your nominations to Cameron Arnott. With the subject line: Outstanding contribution nomination. In the message state the persons name, email, and their contribution that you think is outstanding. |
Spotlight on Fellow Liberty BASIC programmer Stephen from KiwiSoft |
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This month's spotlight is on Stephen. We all know him as Stephen_NZ or as kiwisoft. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to get to a scanner to digetize a photo of himself. He is 13 years old and has a web page at http://kiwisoft.50megs.com . Stephen can be contacted on his email address kiwi_soft@hotmail.com or on the irc.dal.net, chat channel #Liberty BASIC, where he is an assistant operator. Stephen has had no previous programming experience. Liberty BASIC was his first programming language, which he has been using now for one and half years. Stephen says that his level of proficiency in using Liberty BASIC as intermediate. He took up programming in Liberty BASIC because he wanted to make his own games and applications. He found Liberty BASIC on the web and the rest is history. Stephen rates Liberty BASIC 11/10 as a programming language. His other interests include Tramping (Hiking), Soccer and Rugby I asked Stephen if there was anything else he'd like to add Stephen's responce: Favorite jokes: New Windows Messages : "Error reading FAT record! Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)" "Your hard drive has been scanned. All stolen software titles have been deleted and the police are on their way." "This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?". "To 'shut down' your system, type 'WIN'". "Bad or missing mouse! Spank the cat! (Y/N)" "Windows Virus scan 1.0 - 'Windows found: Remove it? (Y/N)'" "BREAKFAST.SYS halted... Cereal port not responding." |
How to use INI files in your Liberty BASIC programs By Stephen - KiwiSoft |
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Here is Stephen's article on how to use INI files in your Liberty BASIC code. In it he shows you how to read and write INI files and has included a sample program. This is an excellent follow-on from Alyce's version in newsletter issue #66. LB2Beta* is required for this version as opposed to LB1.42 in newsletter #66. Thank you Stephen for your contribution to the newsletter. Ini files are files that consist of 3 things: Sections eg: [keys], [fonts] Keywords = Strings eg: up = w, editor = ms_sans_serif 0 16 We can use INI files in just about every program that saves the user's preference's. INI files are very easy to access from Liberty BASIC, using two simple API calls: "WritePrivateProfileString" and "GetPrivateProfileString". Now let's put the calls in functions so they are easy to access. First we will make the "WritePrivateProfileString" Sub Note: there is no need to return anything so a Sub is a better option than a Function. So lets write our Sub:
Now for the "GetPrivateProfileString" Function:
Attached is initest.bas -- a complete sample program to write and read an INI file. Note: Windows automatically makes the INI file if there is no INI present. If there is no path, then the INI file will be automatically be in the Windows directory. |
Interesting Code Snippets posted in LBNews in October: | Back to the Top | ||||
Here is a selection of code snippets and attachments sent to the mailing lint during the month of October. Two examples of the new window type "window_popup" requires LB2beta3. From Alyce, Email alycewatson@charter.net WINPOP1.BAS
WINPOP2.BAS
Here is an example of how to create and use a floating button that pops up in random places on the screen. (I had to edit the code to fix 2 print statements that got split in the email) Hit the escape key to exit From Mitchell Kotler, Email smartestmanal1ve@netscape.net FLBUTTON.BAS
Another message from Mitchell Kotler contained this code for using windows cursors in Liberty BASIC v2.x CURSOR.BAS
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