SdlbasicExamples_101107.zip (747kb)
MinimalExamples_050624.zip (104kb)
SdlbasicScreensavers_071208.zip (104kb)
2010nov07 - Paulo Silva (nitrofurano_at_gmail_dot_com)
(english grammar and vocabulary fixes and improvement are welcome =) )

This page is about some stuff i did for sdlBasic development - not only for contribution, as well for learning it.

Since i finally stopped using ms-windows from almost a year, maybe the newer code may not work, unless you know how to fix them (they are mostly external calls to command line tools like ffmpeg, pdftk, gifsicle, unix commands, etc.).

A good start for some examples were it beign firstly developed with wxBasic (where the sdlBasic core seems to come from).
Some ideas for sdlBasic
In the screensavers code, i replaced 'xrandr --verbose' calls with 'xdpyinfo | grep -i dimension' (thanks from the Ubuntu forum), and the result is only one text line to process, and the result seems to be not change too much like happened with 'xrandr --verbose'. 50 screensavers available (some are mere small changes of each other) - the idea is showing how suitable is sdlBasic for creating screensavers, specially in the Linux community (specially Ubuntu, the distribution i were using mostly).

Started to convert some earlier code to screensavers, targeting their usage with gnome-screensaver/xscreensaver managers - surelly i only can run them alone on sdlBasic, i'll need help to get them working as Linux screensaver. As dependency they also need xrandr for guessing which screen resolution is the operative system running, for opening the same resolution as fullscreen for the screensaver.

After my first posts at http://youtube.com, mostly sdlBasic stuff, i have coded some more maybe would be interesting this page update. Stuff like finally the anagram game, picture overprint processors, etc..

Finally the picture converters (filters) to the 8bit nostalgy were started to be rewritten on sdlBasic, which were implemented the possibility to convert video files to animated gif documents, and with pictures the result can be wider than just .bmp format. For all this, i needed to use Ffmpeg, Imagemagick, Gifsicle, Pdftk, etc., as shell("") calls. The only problem is, since i only have sdlBasic on Linux at home, these converters may not work as expected on non-unix operative systems, like ReactOS, ArOS, ms-windows, AmigaOS, etc. These codes are an excellent example of how far sdlBasic usability can be improved just by calling console apps as command line, and using sdlBasic only for management of whole process, and to work on the 'temporary' pictures they may create.

This webpage were stopped for more than two years, which doesn't means i did stopped coding on sdlBasic - sdlBasic is useful even for creating animated gif pictures in a very unusual way (using it with console tools like gifsicle and imagemagick) - since 6 months from now i'm only using sdlBasic on Linux (and i were not yet so successfull running the MacOS-X version yet) - Using Ubuntu-Linux from 2 years now, i got finally a complete fan of it (much more than MacOS-X, even having a Mac...). Now Dell is selling Ubuntu-OEM on their machines (and who knows Linux will be the only operative system sold in their machines), and hopefully all other manufacturers will follow.

The last update: from Zoiba's request (and some help too), i started to code minimal sdlBasic examples targeting to show how works each sdlBasic command, in the easiest and simplest way as possible. These examples are normally sized between 80 and 600 bytes long, and trying to avoid all external files as possible. My concern is because this kind of examples are excellent for learning any kind of language, environment and so on, because of its simplicity. The great refference i'm using for it is the excellent 'Linguagem Basic MSX' manual were provided with MSX machines from Gradiente (Expert) in Brazil at 80's. Almost 50% is ready now (more than 230 commands with examples - now becoming more difficult reaching 100% (i coded the easier ones...)...). For now i'm having more difficulties on the memory bank and network socket examples. Coding these examples also helps me on learn how to use some commands i never used before.

Fixed a bug on the .obj reader, now allowing to read files exported from JPatch and HamaPatch (it's mainly because significant differences on the 'f' lines (which draws polygons from coordinate indexes)) (btw, this .obj reader only reads 'f' and 'v' lines...)

For this .obj reader i used the 3d example core i coded earlier. Only displays as wireframe (and a bit slowly, since all .obj reading and 3d displaying i'm doing with pure ansi-basic, as open text files and drawing simple 2d lines). The code is mainly my embrionary contribute for future intensive testing of OpenGL on sdlBasic (wxBasic as well, i think). Helps from OpenGL Python/Perl/C coders (like from some open-source games) are also very welcome!
The start of it were a more simple example using 3d vectors on sdlBasic (not using opengl, 3d libraries and hardware, or anything else - just the math calculation needed for simple line-like commands) - the idea is being a preliminary version of what sdlBasic can or should do with 3d. At least seems to be a good start or a nice try. The mouse-interacted example moves the xz observer position, which can make us imagine how useful could be the mouse wheel support on SDL libraries (if someone can help Sam Lantiga with this in a multiplatform viewpoint).

The Guitar Tab Editor is now using playsoundfreq command with a 440hz guitar string sample. Loading, saving and performing tablatures are the missing features...

TtfBrowser is based on IV picture browser example from Vroby (very small changes). My idea is, with a simple .sdlbas code, being able to browse uninstalled truetype fonts on whatever operative system sdlBasic can run. (i confess i still don't know any truetype browser like this!) - Anyway, the code still have lots of bugs.

From my handler examples i started a Motion Path Editor for stuff like 2d games (or even for MotionGFX works, who knows...)

The Map-Tile Editor is still in an embrionary stage (maybe because i don't know how to make it more useful and usable) - personally it's enough for my need. (?)

The SlicerToHtml is for splitting pics and making also a .htm for loading them - Note: the .bmp results must be converted for a more web-friendly format, like .jpg or .png (also in the .htm, of course). Soon i'll use imagemagick calls to fix this gap.

Recently i started some small Colour cycling examples testing the last sdlBasic version feature - now, doing on sdlBasic VJ-like visual effects like provided from apps like from CThuGha will be more easy.

Both .svg and .ttx typeface readers works - the example is based on a curiousity i had about sdlBasic beign able to read and edit typeface vectors (beyond merely using fonts like installed or from freetype library calls).

You can see some
screenshots of the above examples.
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Help needed:
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:: More iniciative on developing examples to sdlBasic and letting us know. (i'm curious about it!)
:: Is someone porting sdlBasic to BeOS (i don't know how to use GCC on BeOS and how to install SDL-BeOS over it) and MacOS-Classic (compilable with CodeWarrior?)? ArOS version is very welcome as well!
:: Ideas, urls and projects i must know.

Interesting links:


http://sdlbasic.sourceforge.net
The great start! Thanks Vroby!

http://wxbasic.sourceforge.net
sdlBasic core - Thanks David Cuny!

http://www15.brinkster.com/nitrofurano/wxbasic
My personal web-page about wxBasic (just like this one).

http://games.linux.sk
Repository of open-source games, like TuxRacer, CrackAttack, FrozenBubble and others.
Who knows in near future will be sdlBasic games in websites like this?


http://proce55ing.net
Interesting project from MIT about simple and impressive open-source multimedia ideas (mainly Java).

http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/
Aminet - very interesting repository - surely not only for Amiga users! (stuff mainly compressed in .lzh (.lha) and PowerPacker formats - the most popular in the Amiga world at 90s)

http://page.freett.com/kuriran/
Interesting stuff made on ActiveBasic (specially Parasoru) - surely stuff like found there can really rocks on sdlBasic!!!

http://www.alles.or.jp/~gyonin/
More japanese stuff - this time made with HotSoupProcessor (a script language looking like between Ansi-Basic and C, coming from the NEC-PC98 time) - webpage from the author of some interesting msx-konami clones to w32 like Manesis and Tokimeki Knightmare.

http://www.braingames.getput.com/
Until now, the best game remakes from MSX originals coded using SDL libraries - very in the way the games can be easily done on sdlBasic.

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(this webpage were only optimized for Firefox browser)