TB editor window (TB V6.007) doesn't scroll with the mouse wheel

nsd333

I'm new to True Basic, so could anyone tell me why the TB editor window (TB V6.007) doesn't scroll (vertically) with the mouse wheel?

Thanks,

Steve

mcc

Hello Steve,
The core of True Basic started off over 50 years ago at Dartmouth and was known for a while as "Dartmouth Basic". It was the first coding language to be actually "human readable", invented by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. (The history of all this is probably on the internet somewhere) I first encountered this original Basic back in ₁₉₆₇, when one could access it over a teletype-like system. Then HP used it in their computers, such as the 9830. Then Microsoft watered it down and put a version on their machines, as did others. This watered-down version gave Basic a bad reputation among serious programmers, and to this day a lot of people don't realize the power of True Basic in spite of its lack of some modern features and other bells and whistles. The authors K&K decided to market it as "True Basic", in its original form, for DOS, and then later the band-aids to get it to run under windows were added.

Back then, there were no wheels on mice, and that is indeed a nuisance.
But, unfortunately, the core code can't be modified because apparently the source notes describing the functioning of the machine code is no longer available. Consequently, it seems unlikely that this wheel problem, along with other features that did not exist back then, can be addressed.

The "Editor Window" is a result of a lot of hard work by "BigJohn" John Arscott to write a new editor to improve the old editor which TB used to have. He probably knows about as much about the inner workings of the language as anyone around these days, and even he can't get into the core code.

This forum used to have many years of searchable posts which contained a lot of info & tips, etc. Perhaps one day that will be available again.

The only way to get to use the mouse wheel is to write all your code in a text editor, such as EditPad Lite, or NP++, or some other such. You can also show line numbers in a text editor so you can easily navigate to any error when TB announces the offending line in the command window. TB programs are just plain ASCII text files, and can have the .txt extension or .tru.

Regards,
Mike C.

nsd333

Thanks for that Mike. I tend to use TextPad as my go to text editor. So I guess a follow on question if you don't mind, is it possible to call the TB compiler from another app? By way of example, if I'm writing something in VBscript, I can call wscript.exe from within TextPad and execute the code I'm working on (you do have to save your work first) without ever having to leave TextPad. Is there a way to pass the source code directly to the compiler and run it?

Steve

mcc

Hi Steve,
Sorry for not replying sooner. I couldn't find this message on this forum for some reason but have just now found it.

You asked if it were possible to call the TB compiler from another app... Well, notepad++ claims to have a feature such that you can do that. It did not seem to work the one time I tried it, but I think I was probably doing something wrong. Since my usual method of using a text editor works so well, (and I am so used to it) I have never bothered to further investigate having a text editor call the TB system directly. I once had another text editor some years ago which actually would do it, but I don't have it anymore and can't even recall the name of it.

I use EditPad Lite, which is their free version, however EditPad Pro (~$60) https://www.editpadpro.com/tools.html claims to have exactly that feature. Here is a quote from their site:

"Use External Tools, Programs and Applications with Your Text Editor.
If you need to invoke other tools or applications on the files you edit, make your life easier by adding those applications to EditPad Pro’s Tools menu. E.g. when editing source code, simply add your programming language’s compiler or interpreter to the Tools menu. Then you can easily compile and run your program right within EditPad Pro by pressing a button or clicking a menu item. ... ", and :

"Use Tools to Extend EditPad Pro’s Abilities.
Use EditPad Pro’s extensive abilities to invoke external applications and scripts to extend EditPad Pro’s functionality with tools or scripts written in your favorite scripting language, such as Perl or Python. EditPad Pro can pass the file name of the file you are currently editing on the command line to your script, or even send the file to the script’s standard input. Your script can then read from standard input, do its job, and send the results to standard output. EditPad Pro can capture the standard output into a new tab. ..."

I have not bought and tried this pro version, but I just might spring for it.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful and answers your question.

Regards,
Mike C.