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Liberty BASIC Workshop Tutorial     |
TOOLS, TOOLS, TOOLS!
Once you are comfortable designing windows and editing code, you'll want to try out the many tools available in Liberty BASIC Workshop. These tools can help you manage resources such as bitmaps and wavs, find the available stylebits for windows and controls, discover the key codes for different keys, and on and on. The tools are really the heart of Liberty BASIC Workshop. They take the drudgery out of coding tasks, and leave the fun part for the programmer!
PREVIEWING TOOLS
The Wav and MIDI Previewer makes it easy to preview music files and copy them to a different directory.
There are three color helpers -- an RGB color previewer, a Windows color dialog, and a color previewer for the 16 named Liberty BASIC colors.
There is a Bitmap Previewer, with the ability to generate a "loadbmp" list and copy bitmaps to a different directory. It also allows bitmaps to be saved in 24-bit format. It gives your programs JPG support because it includes a custom JPG DLL.
The Media Previewer has the ability to generate the Liberty BASIC code to play the media files, and it will copy the files to a different directory, as well as allow you to preview them.
The ASCII - VK_Code previewer makes it really easy to find the key code for any keyboard or ASCII value.
The font dialog preview lets you select fonts easily.
Be sure to check the optional 'Tip of the Day' window for hints on using Liberty BASIC Workshop.
CONSTRUCTION TOOLS
When you are ready to tackle API calls, you can use the built-in library of API functions, or the built-in library of API printer functions.
The Stylebits Wizard not only lists most of the available stylebits for windows and controls, but it also generates code for add-bits, remove-bits, add-extended-bits and remove-extended-bits.
As you gather helpful snippets of code, you can save them with the Snippet Workshop.
The Liberty BASIC texteditor control does not line-wrap. You can replace it with a custom control by using the API Texteditor Template Window.
You'll make good use of Icon Workshop, the icon editor/changer. It can create icon files, or extract icons from DLLs EXEs or ICLs. It allows you to save icons to disk or include in the runtime engine. It can even extract a portion of a bitmap to use as an icon.
The Toolbar Maker creates Windows toolbars with tooltips! It automatically creates the toolbar bitmap for you in the proper format. You can choose to create a new window, or add the toolbar to an existing window.
The AVI Maker allows you to create your own animations from bitmap files!
The Packaging wizard automatically creates a list of needed runtime files, which you can modify as needed. It will create a "Package" directory in the root directory of the TKN and copy all files to this directory, renaming run.exe to match the name of the TKN. It includes the option to create a zipped archive of distribution files.
The Custom Installer for your Liberty BASIC programs is included in the Packaging Wizard. It creates an installation package, including a setup.exe, and uninstall.exe. The installer creates optional shortcuts on the desktop and startmenu, and it installs your program's files into the directory chosen by the user.
The sprite mask-maker allows you to mask your game sprites quickly and easily. It even includes a batch processing capability.
The MessageBox maker allows you to type a title and a message and select the buttons and icon for an API message box. It outputs the code for you, too.
the Array maker lets you create and fill arrays in no time. Just type, hit enter, type, hit enter until you've added all the items. When you close the window, the code to dimension and fill the array is copied to the clipboard for you.
There is a menu maker in the GUI Designer, but there is also another one in the construction tools. It makes quick work of menu creation.