Feature requests

[Wayne Diamond]

Ok no holding back, here goes

- The entire forum database in a downloadable file, updated every few months or so, so that an offline forum search program can be made so that code can be found in seconds. Think MSDN but with Purebasic's forum contents as the data.

- Macro support for inline assembly (but i have a sneaking suspicion that this is already possible by using inline asm sent straight to the fasm assembler?)

- Allow ProcedureReturn to return any 8, 16 or 32-bit register, ie. ProcedureReturn cx

- Add an optional [length] field to the HEX() cmd. So, HEX(20,6) will return "000014"

- Do/Loop's (i thought all basic syntaxes supported those keywords? ... )

- "Enable Inline ASM support" - is there any reason not to have that enabled by default?

- Some sort of visual indicator on the main window somewhere that showed whether the Debugger was enabled, InlineASM enabled, etc (maybe add them to the toolbar under the main menu?)

- Please add "&" symbols to the main menu items to make them easier to navigate with the keyboard, ie "Save" should be "&Save", "Save As" should be "Save &As", etc. I know that some already have designated keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl+S for Save, but many don't, and it'd just be nice to have the usual keyboard shortcuts that most programs have

- Any way to customise the colours? The current color scheme just doesn't do it for me ...

That's all (for now)!

Cheers,
Wayne

[Dare2]

Colours: File .. Preferences .. , then a "coloring" select list with all the bits you can mod.

Good requests.

[blueznl]

we saw the for now

[Rings]

- The entire forum database in a downloadable file, updated every few months or so, so that an offline forum search program can be made so that code can be found in seconds. Think MSDN but with Purebasic's forum contents as the data.

As i remember did Andre collect all sources (usefull ones) for his site purearea.net . there is also a downloadable version of the snippet-collection.

- Macro support for inline assembly (but i have a sneaking suspicion that this is already possible by using inline asm sent straight to the fasm assembler?)

You answer yourself. Use the ! in Front and you have full access to the fasm-commands, including their macro-features (thx Prvalov for his great assembler)

- Allow ProcedureReturn to return any 8, 16 or 32-bit register, ie. ProcedureReturn cx

All Procedures return their values in the EAX register, so you have to move them their manually
!XOR EAX,EAX
!MOV ex,CX

- Please add "&" symbols to the main menu items to make them easier to navigate with the keyboard, ie "Save" should be "&Save", "Save As" should be "Save &As", etc. I know that some already have designated keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl+S for Save, but many don't, and it'd just be nice to have the usual keyboard shortcuts that most programs have
- Any way to customise the colours? The current color scheme just doesn't do it for me ...

Do you remember that the source for the Editor (written in Purebasic itself)is still available ?

and 2 more hints (as i remember you love asm ):

Compile with the /Commented- switch to view/edit the Purebasic-Compiler-Output(assembler) before process the assembler(fasm), an option that you never can do with Powerbasic

Did you recognize the Purebasic' buildin disassembler ? search the OnErrorLibrary (in the Helpfile) for those commands

[GPI]

- "Enable Inline ASM support" - is there any reason not to have that enabled by default?

You can get conflicts with Variable-Names and Assembler-Commands.

[Fred]

About 'Do-Loop', it sounds like 'Repeat-Until' . A bit more precision about the /COMMENTED flag: as Rings said, you can generate the assembly file with /COMMENTED, change it manually to optimize some critical part and the use the /REASM argument to build again the exe based on your changes.

[plouf]

- Do/Loop's (i thought all basic syntaxes supported those keywords? ... )

im my knowledge do/lloop from other dialects is Repeat/Until here
(or do you mean to change te keyword name ?)

[Psychophanta]

Should be nice Do [While|Until] , Loop [While|Until|Forever].
And remove While-Wend and Repeat-Until.

But perhaps it is too late...

@Wayne Diamond; if you like ASM, i advise you to program using ! as prefix for all ASM mnemonics. (Rings explained below too.) This brings your code directly to FASM, and this means full access to FASM macros, etc. and not needed to "Activate ASM Code" in Compile Options...

[LarsG]

..remove While-Wend and Repeat-Until.

Are you nuts?!?
Every Basic dialect has these... and they are needed.

oh btw: you mentioned "Do Forever".. you can do "Repeat Forever"...

[tinman]

- Add an optional [length] field to the HEX() cmd. So, HEX(20,6) will return "000014"

You can always use Right(Hex(20), 6) for now. Sure, you'll end up with two string operations instead of one, but if you're worried about speed I'm sure you could hack up a Hex replacement easily enough.

[GPI]

Should be nice Do [While|Until] , Loop [While|Until|Forever].
And remove While-Wend and Repeat-Until.

But perhaps it is too late...

Why remove while-wend and repeat-until?

And why for loop forever?

Code: Select all

do
  ;stuff
loop

Should be engouth.

[newbie]

GPI:

Wayne Diamond a écrit:

- "Enable Inline ASM support" - is there any reason not to have that enabled by default?


You can get conflicts with Variable-Names and Assembler-Commands.

indeed by turning on this option, a variable named "div" on my code was seen as an ASM command DIV with bad parameters

[Psychophanta]

GPI wrote:

And why for loop forever?
Code:
do
;stuff
loop

Should be engouth.

Yes; you are right.

Why remove Repeat-Until and While-Wend?
Because should be a surplus, don't?

[Rings]

If we have Macro-features in Purebasic we could write a Do/Loop Construct by ourselfs ( hint -> Fred (do the easy ones ) )

[Wayne Diamond]

Thanks, ive got macros working easily enough with inline asm now, but it'd also be nice to have macros at the Purebasic/preprocessor level!
I've also now got a very sexy color scheme, damn it looks good.

I see no reason to remove language constructs that already exist - if you don't use them they don't get compiled into your exe, so 'surplus' isn't really an issue. By providing these constructs (While/Wend, Do/Loop etc), you'll find that programmers coming from other basic compilers will find it a lot easier and quicker to get acquainted with Purebasic.

Newbie,

indeed by turning on this option, a variable named "div" on my code was seen as an ASM command DIV with bad parameters

And the lesson learnt? - Use proper variable names, never name your variables after instructions! If you ask for trouble, the compiler is more than happy to give it to you.

Tinman,

You can always use Right(Hex(20), 6) for now. Sure, you'll end up with two string operations instead of one, but if you're worried about speed I'm sure you could hack up a Hex replacement easily enough.

Thanks, but Right/Left pads it out with spaces, not the "0" numeric char which is needed for such a Hex function, but it'll be easy to knock up in asm - looks like that'll be on tonights menu ...

Thanks fellas