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[Petrus Vorster]

Hi All

Firstly, thanks again for the work Paul and Josè had put into all the classes, coding and development.
Without you two, most of us would have been lost.

I would like to suggest a wishlist, if that is possible.
I am not sure whether the WinFBE uses standard windows controls or would you be adding additional self developed controls as well?

Cosmetics had become essential in programs and its nice to be able to add a little modern touch to the look of something.
Most controls would be nice if we could choose, borders on/off. Border color changes when needed, focus rectangle color/opacity etc.
Grid/Listview control with fully editable cells, different cell text colours, individual cell colours and highlights, borders on/Off/colours and cell calculations etc...(almost like in Excel)

TextBoxes with different looks, like no border, flat borders, sunken and colours etc....
All controls with a mouse in/out subroutine build in and a page-control_preview like in old VB6 where you automatically had a catch for any routine before it is passed to the control on the form.

A "socket" kind of control that you just drag onto a form and allows internet connection/data from and to websites, Reading feeds, WhatsApp API feeds etc.
Nowadays many internet feeds are available, but just about everyone has a different protocol like Jscript, C+, C#, Python etc. Would it not be great if one could get a universal tool to "connect" to any such external Api's on the net?

A big wishlist i know....

I am looking forward with much anticipation at every step of progress being posted.

Thanks for sacrificing your time, I for one am very grateful.

-Regards Peter

[Paul Squires]

:-) hehehe, yeah that's a big wishlist.

I have already changed some of the controls to be a little more customizable than the standard Windows controls. You'll see those changes in the next update that I release. As you have described, there are many other changes that could be implemented. My goal is to get a stable designer and core functionality released and then work on all of the eye candy stuff. I agree with you that the modern looking controls should be there.

[Joerg Buckel]

Hello Paul
I have a question for you. I have in an old project in a label a multiline text and recompiled after an extension.
Now the text at the end of the line is no longer wrapped with CHR(10).

Can you take a look at it?

[Paul Squires]

Try downloading and running your project against this version of WinFBE. It is the very latest package. It is a direct download from my website. I am not ready yet to release it to GitHub fr general download. Let me know if these files make any difference to your project.
https://www.planetsquires.com/files/WinFBE_Suite.rar

[Joerg Buckel]

Hello Paul

With this version, long texts are wrapped again in the label control.
Many thanks for the quick help!

[Petrus Vorster]

I have done a great deal of research on aesthetics in software.
The Baby boomers generation started this whole computer use thing but the millennials are now on the roll.
The millennials literally were born with an app in hand, so to speak and not only values ease of performance but also the aesthetics of what they are using or buying.
I suppose it's like a car. A VW Beetle will get you anywhere reliably, but you will probably purchase a Mercedes or a Jeep with all the bells and whistles.
Most heavyweight production tools like C# and Android tools comes with a plethora of gimmicks, and the users love it.
Stupid as it may seem to choose between different coloured smiley faces or ten different styles of poo icons, the fact remains the users love this.

Although i am a hobbyist with way too little time to sit and try and program something for work, i have discovered that this counts just as much with senior people as with junior millennial users.
I saw with my own eyes how an It manager passed the biggest piece of cr@p software past a visiting cabinet minister by looks alone. The Minister even said "Gentleman I am impressed!" without knowing he had been shown a bunch of Icons running from a local database and that the platform online had not even been developed yet....(and its still a disaster today...)

You are making wonderful progress here, and i am childishly excited about the bucket loads of work you are all putting into this.
It would be an absolute heaven sent gift if the visual designer could allow additional controls, smart controls, plug ins etc.
Even greater if it could run on Android too....  ...a need I had run into multiple times now. To apply a Android portion to work with my PC tool.
Any hobbyists work i do will have a much better chance of being permitted to cover the gaps op our organisation's ancient software.

Whatever you roll out here is great stuff, I am very thankful for what is happening.

Keep up the good work.

-Peter

[raymw]

Well, I prefer functionality over form. Need a simple reliable tool, not a load of gee-whiz arty farty garbage. The picture that you, Peter, paint of 'management' makes me so happy I left behind such creatures over 20 years or so ago - lucky me... My philosophy? is keep it simple. Keep it crisp. I am very disappointed in the lack of real progress in software. I like the relative simplicity of the basic basic language, not so happy with the bells and whisles being added to make it into something else. I would hope that if the fancy options are desired, that they don't clutter the interface. I would prefer a stripped down default list of choices, and then, once it is proven to function, add in the pretty layers afterwards. Just because a thing is possible, it is not necessary that it should be achieved. (Reminds me of an old TV remote that had 64 buttons on it, just 'cos they could. A bit of a problem locating the three or four you needed amidst the forest of the other sixty or so.

[Paul Squires]

My goal is get the basics of the visual designer working perfectly before adding any eye candy. I have modified the ListBox control to make it better looking with hot mouse tracking and coloring. I have also modified the Label control to allow more functionality than the standard Windows control. Likewise, we're using Jose's CXPButton to replace the standard Windows command button control. The big things missing right now are Treeview, Listview and tab control, however I feel confident that these will be added much more easily now that the guts of the program is pretty solid. I just finished writing a program to use at work and it allowed me to test every aspect of the underlying framework. The number of changes that I made were so much that I stopped documenting them all.

[SeaVipe]

Paul, you're a Wizard! Thanks so much for all the hard work you're putting into this very substantial product - looking forward to the next release.

Jose, Great stuff, I always enjoy and appreciate your no-nonsense replies which make it so much easier to solve my own programming issues.
And thanks to all you other good folks and good programmers who are contributing - your code snippets, ideas and comments are a real help.

[Jean-pierre Leroy]

Even greater if it could run on Android too....  ...a need I had run into multiple times now. To apply a Android portion to work with my PC tool.

Hi Petrus,

If you're looking for a simple and robust tool to develop applications on Android, I can suggest B4A.
B4A programming language is like Basic.
More info here https://www.b4x.com/b4a.html

Regards,
Jean-Pierre

[Joerg Buckel]

Hello raymw
Here the opinions will probably be different.
Like many other hobby programmers, I belong to the faction who are happy about every relief.

Of course I know that every relief promotes a mental laziness.
But I accept that. I'm just glad that Paul is doing this work and that Jose doesn't have long time needs for change requests or adjustments.
So far I don't have the impression at all that WinFBE is overloaded. But I don't worry that it will be like this one day.
Why are you very disappointed about the lack of real progress in the software?I find your statement a little unfair.
Keep in mind that only Paul is working on it as an individual.

And he can only work on it "on the side".He also has to earn a living.

It ist a great work.
And we have the time to wait, until this work is ready.Or you have to use a rudimentary development.

[raymw]

Hi Joerg,
Only I understand what I'm trying to say?

I am very disappointed in the lack of real progress in software.

I'm not referring to Paul's and Jose's exceedingly useful efforts, but more general software development, the way in which things are made unnecessarily more complex, for example. Probably because the people involved are a few stages removed from the end user, and the commercial requirements over-ride the functionality. I could give thousands of examples, but you probably know many yourself. (Try using the help for Visual Studio (C#) - You'll maybe know what I'm driving at - it was rubbish a few years ago, no idea about it now)

[Petrus Vorster]

Hi All

Yes i think i understand what everyone is saying.
The more eye candy, the lesser the performance. Like .NET. What a piece of bulky garbage!
Looks great, but you need a super computer to run the darn thing properly.

I love Basic. So simple (well for me at least) and Paul makes life a breeze.
Without Paul, Josè and Firefly, i probably would have left Hobbyist programming a long time ago.

So what i want to do is somewhere in the middle, not overbearing looks but a couple of small touches that will please my mind.
I am basically a drag and drop programmer, it works for me and I enjoy the help the tools provide at work.
(And enjoy also to see how politically promoted idiots struggle without the tools they cant create and their own red tape prevents them from buying. It gives me great joy to say the least.)

This WinFBE is like watching someone build you a new car, you know it's going to be great, but you keep on annoying the maker with all kinds of new ideas.. LOL.

This is by far the most joyful forum with some of the most helpful people in the world that i had ever came across.

Great stuff everyone, and thanks for always being supportive.

-Peter

[Joerg Buckel]

Hi raymw
Then I guess I misunderstood you. Excuse me.

I wrote my first program with GW Basic.There weren't that many commands, but it was enough for my needs.
Then came Quickbasic, Turbobasic, Powerbasic, Visualbasic, and so on.
With all the possibilities. And with all the possibilities the demands have also increased. And with the demands the confusion.
Many of my acquaintances think I should use .Net. Everything quite simply.
And now we are perhaps with what you meant.
I have looked at .Net. maybe thousends of Functions.  I needed more time to find the functions than to program them.
Sure it goes faster if I know what I need and know where I find it.
Perhaps also only one thing of the attitude. Also the own.
But I simply did not like it.
I like it when I don't have to deliver a 100 MB framework because I don't know if they are available on the computer.
I like small programs that I can pass on and know it works.
That's why I also appreciated Powerbasic very much.
But that is unfortunately past.
And now I am learning something new again and am glad that I have a helper with WinFBE.