QuoteIt may also seem a backward step to put every keyword together in alphabetical order, but one of the things that slowed down my introduction to sB was the sections, since it's not immediately obvious which section a keyword might be under. This is especially true when you don't know what you're looking for, but is actually just a logical problem with any tree or discrete section structure. It leads to repetitions, like PEN, which is listed under Console with barely any information, and under Graphics with the full list of parameters. What's ARC, or PTDISTLN, maths or graphics - so it goes on, slowing you down looking stuff up every time you write a new line of code as a newbie. Where should PRINT be, since it can be to the console or a file? It could be useful in an alphabetical list to indicate those categories with each keyword, but they're more like tags than sections.Do you have any specific suggestion of how you'd like this to appear? I can add it to this page:https://smallbasic.github.io/pages/reference.html
It may also seem a backward step to put every keyword together in alphabetical order, but one of the things that slowed down my introduction to sB was the sections, since it's not immediately obvious which section a keyword might be under. This is especially true when you don't know what you're looking for, but is actually just a logical problem with any tree or discrete section structure. It leads to repetitions, like PEN, which is listed under Console with barely any information, and under Graphics with the full list of parameters. What's ARC, or PTDISTLN, maths or graphics - so it goes on, slowing you down looking stuff up every time you write a new line of code as a newbie. Where should PRINT be, since it can be to the console or a file? It could be useful in an alphabetical list to indicate those categories with each keyword, but they're more like tags than sections.
Quote from: chrisws on April 12, 2020, 11:01:10 PMQuoteIt may also seem a backward step to put every keyword together in alphabetical order, but one of the things that slowed down my introduction to sB was the sections, since it's not immediately obvious which section a keyword might be under. This is especially true when you don't know what you're looking for, but is actually just a logical problem with any tree or discrete section structure. It leads to repetitions, like PEN, which is listed under Console with barely any information, and under Graphics with the full list of parameters. What's ARC, or PTDISTLN, maths or graphics - so it goes on, slowing you down looking stuff up every time you write a new line of code as a newbie. Where should PRINT be, since it can be to the console or a file? It could be useful in an alphabetical list to indicate those categories with each keyword, but they're more like tags than sections.Do you have any specific suggestion of how you'd like this to appear? I can add it to this page:https://smallbasic.github.io/pages/reference.htmlWhat tends to work for me is an alphabetical list of keywords on one page, and I guess it would be good if they were on that main reference page, with a link direct to the details page for each keyword. Ideally, each keyword in the alphabetical list would also have a brief explanation next to it. But I'm aware you've got a more important task with the actual language, so if it's just me requesting this, don't make it a priority.I have made a start on something myself. I don't know if I'll stick at it, but I hope so. I might get inspired. It's helping me learn more of the language as I do it. I've also remembered that there's a lot more to a language than the keywords, so I'll have to work out what to put in and how it might look and operate. It could be useful to have certain special characters like <<, &, @, etc. in the list itself, or headings like Special Characters that link to another page.I wondered about making it an actual smallBASIC program, but I'm not sure how that would work. Probably better would be to output the data to an html file, adding the tags for the formatting programmatically.So far, I've gathered the keywords from all the reference categories, sorted them and put them in column 0 of an array, with other columns for reference syntax, tags (largely reproducing the sections of the current help), description, examples, further notes, and related keywords. Most of that is populated by zeros - I've filled in the other bits as far as absmin(). Incidentally, I'm toying with writing them all in lowercase, and putting parentheses at the end when they take them.It could be tabulated in a single html page, which might give that overview and searchability I wanted, but each item could also link to more detailed discussion or longer examples of code where available. Currently I'm working on displaying the data in the program itself, and routines to deal with structural changes like adding 'columns'. Since it's all in a text file that loads into the array, I can add information to the file in Notepad or whatever and save it, and I can copy a lot of it off the web, but it'll take a bit of time.
Thanks for the clarification. Parts of the web site are generated using SmallBASIC. Have a look here:https://github.com/smallbasic/smallbasic.github.io/tree/master/_buildI put this all together fairly quickly, but hopefully it's not too indecipherable It should be fairly trivial to make the change.
Erm...I dunno, I guess it depends what it involved and if Chris or whoever- the forum owners - asked me, but I'm only slightly familiar with sB really. I ask lots of newbie questions myself. I've got long experience with BASIC, although mostly with an ancient version. Moderating would normally be day-to-day administration, like - if we had sub-boards - moving things to an appropriate place, 'policing' the guidelines, etc., so maybe you're as qualified as me for the role. With numbers as they are, I don't suppose it would be a big job, but yeah, it looks like something Chris doesn't want to be doing too much of. From what he said earlier, it might also be useful if the moderator was actually fairly proficient with sB and with github - then they could add suggestions and bug reports posted here to the issues list there. Maybe if a moderator is an idea that catches on, the right person will volunteer.
QuoteAt this stage I'm just making minor incremental changes, mostly from suggestions such as this one!Do you mean that the development of SmallBASIC nearly stopped? Oh....No I think he means at this moment small changes are being made, he says nothing about stopping development at all.
At this stage I'm just making minor incremental changes, mostly from suggestions such as this one!Do you mean that the development of SmallBASIC nearly stopped? Oh....
Quote from: lettersquash on March 25, 2020, 12:01:37 AMDid you see this? Scroll down to "How to help design a better looking editor color theme" https://smallbasic.github.io/pages/sdl.htmlThank you!!! I have edited the text file and the file name is settings.txt. I uploaded to this forum. You can download in this post and the colour combination may be liked by you.
Did you see this? Scroll down to "How to help design a better looking editor color theme" https://smallbasic.github.io/pages/sdl.html
Another thing to really put time into is how everything fits together with icons color, etc.Here's a shot of an editor with everything working together:- On the left is the code view. note the colors and icons.- On the right is the code editor, note the line numbers with the same icons and colors
The theme looks really nice. I'm using it in the next update. Just a quick question, mind if I call it "R157"?
Also, the themes will be selectable from the context menu in the start screen. This will be in the SDL and android versions.
I haven't done a huge amount of work on SB but plan to release what I have soon......