Basic4GL for Java

[crazynate]

Edited Feb 24, 2015

If anyone's been missing out on what's going on Basic4GL's Facebook group page, for the past five months I've been working on porting Basic4GL to Java and have made quite a bit of progress surprisingly enough. Aside from a few hiccups with porting the wrong files, everything seems to be coming along nicely and as of version 0.2.1 it is possible to export Basic4GL applications that run on Java, albeit they lack a lot of functionality.

The project will remain closed source until I get a plugin library API set in place which will hopefully follow soon after getting the function update rolled out. This is to hopefully to avoid too much confusion for people who want to write their own function libraries and it gives me time to tidy up the code and make it look less like C++ (there are still plenty of 'assert' statements throughout the code that should be removed before a beta release).


Basic4GLj download page: crazynatestudios.com/projects/basic4glj/downloads

Current Version: 0.2.1 alpha

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Changelog:

Version 0.2.1

• Export standalone Java applications
• Project settings implemented
• Function list added
• Misc. fixes to syntax highlighting
• Removed unnecessary resources

Version 0.2.0

• UI changes and fixes
• Improved text editing
• Bookmarking code implemented
• Fixed issue with VM error handling and reporting
• Added license info

Version 0.1.1

• Fixed issue with function calls
• Fixed issue with parsing hex constants
• Print function doesn't require parenthesis
• misc small fixes

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Roadmap for what to expect in planned updates:

0.2 UI updates

• improve syntax highlighting
• settings
• export applications
• "include" keyword
• implement tabs
• debugging

0.3 Add functions

• OpenGL functions/standard libraries

0.4 Plugin API

• External Jar support

0.5 Improve portability

• Add build targets
• Web applet
• Android version

0.6 Networking & VM Viewer (tentative, may be combined with other updates)

0.7 Stability and bug fixes

[matthew]

Thanks for the update Nate. It seems like you're making good progress on this. :-)

[crazynate]

Git may have just won me over; I managed to find a way to compare the 2.5.0 source with 2.5.8 so getting things up to date should be much easier

[crazynate]

Moved getting the project up to date with 2.5.8 to top priority, so an initial alpha release might take a little bit longer but should have fewer issues in general... Trying to fix bugs in out of date code that got fixed in the updates just seemed really silly

[crazynate]

Getting things updated has taken a bit longer than expected, but I have finally managed to get the code for the compiler and vm to match version 2.5.8. The issue with assigning values to a structure field still exists so I'll need to double check my code against the original source, but for the most part everything else seems to be functioning properly.

Recent changes:

• VM and Compiler up-to-date w/version 2.5.8
• So. Much. Refactoring.
• Standard math library implemented
• IB4GL DLL interfaces added (possibly not needed)
• misc. bug fixes

Goals for next week:

• Fix structure bug
• Implement text library
• Code highlighting

Other goals for future builds:

• Add command line arguments
• Qualify library functions if collisions exist
  
• Add Compiler directives

Once I get a text library implemented I'll try to start releasing bi-weekly builds since there will at least be some output to test things out with even if it is just in a dialog box or something like that.

[matthew]

That's excellent news, I can't wait to try it out. :-)

Sent from my CnM-TP-7DC-8-B using proboards

[matthew]

Just a quick update, nate has updated the Java version of Basic4GL and it can be downloaded here.

Join the Basic4GL Facebook group here for more information. ;-)

[crazynate]

Just a heads up, the download link Matthew posted will only be good until January 10th; I'm hoping to get a new version uploaded that day

[crazynate]

The new build can be downloaded here

Main changes:

• Fixed issue with functions
• Fixed issue with parsing hex constants

[crazynate]

After a few more updates and I get the source code in a presentable state, I'll publish my repository to GitHub with a New BSD license, though whenever I get to working on it I believe I'll keep the Android version closed source. That said, if I manage to implement building Android apps into the desktop version that will remain open source.

Right now I'm working on interface improvements which will be the main focus of the 0.2.0 update, which I hope to have uploaded by the 20th.
The 20th is the first day of my spring semester so progress will be a little slower but I'll try to have 0.3.0 with OpenGL functionality and exporting Jars out sometime mid to late-February.

Preview of 0.2.0

[crazynate]

So my schedule's been a bit busier with school than I anticipated so getting updates out as planned hasn't quite worked so well, though quite a bit of progress has still been made. In case you aren't a part of the Basic4GL Facebook group, you might like to know that exporting Java applications is now working nicely, though additional functions + OpenGL still won't be implemented for a few updates.

Version 0.2.0 is out and I'll edit my first post to include the download link and other info. I'd like to get the "include" keyword working before I start work on functions and release it in version 0.2.1, though I apparently ported the wrong file for the main window so it'll take a rewrite of the main class to get implemented which shouldn't be too much trouble. Depending on how things go with the rewrite I may go ahead and try to implement the debugger, which would push back the function update another month or so but may help out in the long run.

I don't hope to release the source before the function update because I'd like to have the function API developed well enough that people can work on adding their own function library extensions without too much hassle.

[crazynate]

Sorry for lack of progress updates the past month, the project is still going on just at a slower pace because I've been busy with class and needing to prioritize stuff for work.

As of now, I'd like to think the interface rewrite is mostly complete, though I need to get breakpoints working to test if other debugging controls are functioning properly. I'm currently trying to extend the library I'm using for syntax highlighting to allow multiple icons be displayed in the row header so bookmarks icons don't cover up the breakpoints. Worst case scenario I'll just label bookmarks as breakpoints and carry on, but I would like to try to keep both for sake of usability.

The only other known issues at the moment is that the "include" statement tries to load files from the wrong location and tabs don't have a close button yet but that shouldn't too much an issue to address (I hope).

TL;DR Project still isn't dead I'm just busy and bad with estimating completion times, and debugging will definitely will be in the the next update whenever that is.

[crazynate]

Finally got through the big items on my job's to-do list so now I can have a little more time to poke at the port to-do list.

As far as progress, I caused a Java access violation with a new library I'm testing out - it got fixed once I remembered that pointers are a thing that need to be set to null after deleting the value.