Liberty Basic

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Liberty Basic is a dialect of the BASIC programming language and a commercial integrated development environment that can be used to create programs for Windows .

Version 5 should be available in versions for Windows, Linux and Mac OS .

history

Liberty BASIC was originally written by Carl Gundel and has been published and further developed by his company Shoptalk Systems since 1992. The last update took place in 2017. The current version is v4.5.1.

General

In addition to an MS-DOS -like console, Liberty BASIC uses the graphical user interface (English: Graphical User Interface , GUI). The software includes a visual shape designer called FreeForm, which is written in Liberty Basic. The program was further expanded by the Liberty Basic community. The JIT compiler compiles (as with Java Virtual Machine ) according to bytecode which is executed by a runtime engine. Liberty BASIC is shareware and only registered users can create independent programs.

Special components of Liberty BASIC are:

  1. Source code level debugger
  2. Calling DLLs and APIs
  3. Support of color graphics
  4. Sprite animation, sound, music, mouse and joystick control
  5. Creating a package for creating an independent program
  6. An additional package called ASSIST, with source code formatter, source code version management, performance indicator in the debugger and source code comparison

With version 4.04, the additional Assist package has been merged with the basic version to form the Pro version.

programming language

It was a central idea to model the handling of the windows according to the same syntax as the file handling.

Example from the Liberty BASIC help: "The OPEN command enables communication with a file, a window, a DLL or a serial port."
OPEN device FOR purpose AS #handle {LEN = n}
OPEN device FOR purpose AS # unique name {LEN = n}

This universal syntax is one of the features of Liberty BASIC that makes it easier to learn. As soon as a "device" is open, you can send data and control commands to the device. This command "can be specified with PRINT". There are separate command sets for each device. In the newer versions of Liberty BASIC, the word "Print" can be omitted, which makes the syntax even simpler.

For example

The source code 
    NOMAINWIN
    OPEN "Aufschrift des Fensters" FOR window AS #Fenster

    #Fenster "trapclose [quit]"
    'oder PRINT #Fenster, "trapclose [quit]"

    WAIT

[quit]
    CLOSE #Fenster
    END
generated
DuitsVenster.png

literature

  • Beginning Programming with Liberty BASIC (English)
  • APIs for Liberty BASIC (English)

Web links