Graphic's tools Pro.

[Robert Dunn]

I have just started using FireFly Visual Designer, I'm using Version # 2.86  and also the Power basic compiler 8.04
I had purchased an OCX file for graphics in PBwin.  I'm wanting to use this in FireFly So, I created a form and put the activex/ocx
control on the form. went to the properties section clicked on OXCPROGID and located the ocx file. clicked on the progids on the
right hand side od the screen and double clicked on the Gfxt_pro.gfxwindow name and it gives me an error.
Runtime error '438' object does not support this property or method. 

Is this control going to be able to be used in Firefly?   It does work in VB6 and in PBwin8.04   
I looked up the error code in the PBWin help file,
Member name expected - The compiler encountered a statement or other text where a structure member name was expected.

also another quick question, Is there no debuging in FireFly?    I'm moving straight from VB6 into PBwin8.4 I have played with pbforms1.51 for a bit and opened the code it generated with the ide and it does seem to be better than writting all of the screen and controls by hand in the ide.

I'm really starting to like Firefly's ability to enter the code Almost just as you would in VB6. Seems to be the way to go for the vb'rs out there.  I really don't know much about the pbwin ide as the last time I played with basic was in the dos days and Qbasic.
But, If this turns out to be anything close to a vb6 type of GUI That's what I'm looking for....

I did poke around in the Firefly help files and found A customs control section that refers me to the user forums here.
I think I'll go have a look see What is in there.  The more documentation I can get my hands on the faster I too can learn to write some of that smaller,faster code  :O)

With that being said, Is there any books out about FireFly that I could purchase to help witht the learning curve?

Thanks,

    Robert

[TechSupport]

Hi Robert,

Great to have you aboard!

I understand that Graphics Tools Pro comes in standard Windows DLL form (in addition to the OCX). Personally, I have avoided OCX's since I switched from Visual Basic many years ago. FireFly can handle a fair number of OCX's. There is a limitation with OCX's created using Visual Basic. Refer to Jose's post at his forum: http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=1134.0  Having said that, I'm sure that your Graphics Tools OCX is not a VB creation. I am not sure why that error would be thrown. Are there other ProgIDs listed? Have you tried clicking on them all? Maybe you can post a screenshot of the tree showing all of the id's so maybe I can see something in there.

Debugging in FireFly..... You will soon learn that although FireFly has VB like attributes, it certainly is more lower level than VB. VB uses pcode, a kind of interpreter, in order to allow debugging in its IDE. In FireFly, you would need to generate the source code and then use PB's Editor to load the CODEGEN_PROJECT_MAIN.BAS file at debug it. That would be a long and painful process   There are several things that FireFly programmers do to debug. Personally, I can get by with some strategically placed MSGBOX's that show the values I am interested in. In cases where a MSGBOX will screw up the firing of certain events, then I will output my values to a log file - a standard text file. The are other methods but these two are the pretty straight forward and easy.

Also, realize that PB is harder than VB. It is a fact of life. VB shields you from A LOT of stuff. In PB you need to get down to the roots of Windows programming a little more. You need to learn about messages that controls generate and in general how Windows handles messages and events. All of that stuff was packaged and handled by VB in its runtime DLL. However, I guarantee you that once you learn the basics of Windows programming and use that knowledge in FireFly you will amazed at the speed and small size of programs that you will create. It took me a couple of years to get comfortable with Windows programming but once I did, I couldn't believe how freeing and liberating it was. I could write just about anything I wanted - from scratch. Write things that would be horrible hacks in VB.

A great place to start is reading old posts in POFFS. That's how I learned. I would search for topics of interest and read for hours. There is such a wealth of knowledge available. You can download POFFS from http://www.reonis.com/POFFS/index.htm   Also, make sure that you get the Win32 API Help file. It is a little old but is still very relevant. http://www.powerbasic.com/support/downloads/files/Win32API.zip

There are no books on FireFly. It would be nice if there was.... but I'm only one man and writing software is time consuming enough. 

[Mark Strickland]

I use a function that outputs to a console window for debugging.  I found it on one of the PB forums and modified it.

You cannot single step code and look at values but you can add this to see what is going on:

Code Select Expand

DEBUG("Some text ="+str$(number))

This avoids the message box popup issue and you can write lots of stuff to the window and scroll it back.

If you cannot find the code anywhere post back here and I will post what I have.

And Welcome to the best development tool kit on the planet -- PB and FireFly!