Author Topic: Basic builder plugins (Read 8267 times)

mmartin · « **on:** April 30, 2006, 07:34:00 am »

I am the author of basicbuilder and would like to ask a question to the (advanced) basic programmers here. I don't know if you've used basicbuilder but it's a windows program to package your application inside an app. When the app is started, your basic programs will be unpacked from the app, executed and deleted afterwards. It's the closest thing to actually executing from archive.

I've gotten some feature requests for advanced features and am considering to add a plugin system to basicbuilder in order to support them. For example I (or anyone else) might add a plugin that only extracts the main program and keeps the subprograms stored in flash. Whenever a subprogram is called, it is unpacked, executed and deleted. This means that only the programs that are actually running are in memory. For example program B and C might be 16kb (they don't fit together in memory) and program A is the main program (:prgmB:prgmC) What happens is that B is unpacked and run but it is deleted before C is unpacked and run. This means that there will be enough memory to execute C even if B and C don't fit together.

Another possibility would be to add features of XLib to basicbuilder. This would allow you to distribute your entire program as a single app that should work on any calculator. Or you could add a grayscale plugin.

Now my question is if there are enough people that would use the plugins? Also, please tell me any reason why you think this plugin system is useful to you. I will try to submit this as a google summer of code project and any reasons I can give in my application are handy.

Thanks,
Martin

necro · « **Reply #1 on:** April 30, 2006, 07:37:00 am »

that sounds like a great idea, it could alow for some very promising advancements in the feild of basic. Among other things, I can imagine kevin could update all his games and maybe make some sequels.

Spellshaper · « **Reply #2 on:** April 30, 2006, 07:48:00 am »

1. Welcome to the forums!

2. I've looked into Basicbuilder before, and I think the addition of those plugins would raise popularity a lot! There are many games that have a size greater than the RAM allows and thus cannot be converted into an App via Basicbuilder

Of yourse, that's just theory, since I haven't finished my first project yet, but I may use a new build of Basicbuilder, it is easier for the occasional user to copy just one program to calc and just run it instead of following a 3/2 page installation readme.

elfprince13 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 30, 2006, 07:54:00 am »

sweet. I guess I should fix them bugs from my wxPython release. that would be the biggest change Id like to see would be if my multiplatform work became part of the official build.

kalan_vod · « **Reply #4 on:** April 30, 2006, 09:47:00 am »

I think it would be useful, but I think you would need to make it a two page app instead. As xLIB is almost a full page, and adding a game in wouldn't fit (not a big one). If you can figure it out I would love it, and I know others would too!

elfprince13 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 30, 2006, 10:24:00 am »

Basicbuilder can make page sized app iirc. And it only includes the features you request, so it leaves out support for pics if you dont include any. :-p

necro · « **Reply #6 on:** April 30, 2006, 01:14:00 pm »

does basic builder have a maximum page limit?

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #7 on:** April 30, 2006, 01:32:00 pm »

hi and welcome to the forums. Actually I must admin I have been the one who got the most request of porting games to basic builder, especially since I only made big rpgs. But I never did because it was too long to convert and in most case impossible.

Actually it would be cool if we didnt had to modify the basic program code at all to convert the games to BB. Plus maybe allow programs to be directly copied to archive memory, since some games use both memory. Just take a look at Reuben Quest or Reign of Legends 3 for example

mmartin · « **Reply #8 on:** May 01, 2006, 02:01:00 am »

What do you need to convert, because the only thing which you may have to convert is the way images are recalled. The rest is automatically converted or simply not supported. The idea I had was to keep the programs inside the app, because it would seem a big waste of space to unpack them from the app (which is stored in flash) and directly archive them. If you can just delete the programs when necessary and unpack them from the app when you need them, you wouldn't waste as much space.

At the moment basicbuilder can only be used to generate one page apps. But if there are enough people who want larger apps I will just add it in combination with the plugins.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #9 on:** May 01, 2006, 02:53:00 am »

QuoteBegin-mmartin+May 1 2006, 09:01 AM-->

QUOTE (mmartin @ May 1 2006, 09:01 AM)

If you can just delete the programs when necessary and unpack them from the app when you need them, you wouldn't waste as much space.

that would be cool as a feature I think. As for the picture recalling it would be cool if we didnt had to change this at all as well. Basically we would just need to include the programs, click and its done, no need to look at the basic code and change picture recalling stuff. I wanted to pack Illusiat 1,2,3,5,6 and 8 and mana force together once but I lost motivation because I had to change the way pictures are recalled, and in some games they are recalled over hundred of times >.<

However I dont think a BASIC Builder version of Reuben quest would be ever possible, due to the way the program is done. The whole game is 68 KB huge, without Omnicalc. Unless I don't know how to convert it but then you would have to show me by converting the whole game yourself

kalan_vod · « **Reply #10 on:** May 01, 2006, 04:28:00 am »

It would be great to have it be able to just add the programs and pictures to the app, and it would run the pics from the archive and just copy the program running/going to be runned into RAM. Also like you said adding the option to make multiple paged apps would be great, but I hope you plan on making it automattic (the size of it) were it detects how many pages it needs.

necro · « **Reply #11 on:** May 02, 2006, 08:10:00 am »

didn't ruebon use a bunch of ram libraries to, though? If you removed those in place of xlib and auoto archive-to- ramining, how much memory would be used?

kalan_vod · « **Reply #12 on:** May 02, 2006, 09:07:00 am »

QuoteBegin-necro+May 2 2006, 02:10 PM-->

QUOTE (necro @ May 2 2006, 02:10 PM)

didn't ruebon use a bunch of ram libraries to, though? If you removed those in place of xlib and auoto archive-to- ramining, how much memory would be used?

He is talking about just adding it directly, not changing it to use xLIB.

necro · « **Reply #13 on:** May 02, 2006, 04:09:00 pm »

...then it'd be the same speed

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #14 on:** May 03, 2006, 02:39:00 am »

reuben in xlib would run much faster, it alerady use xlib but the old one, so basically moving to the new one would save near 700 bytes of ram, plus 400 for the removal of flash gordon

but there is still the problem that some programs are directly run from archives and installed here as well

Author Topic: Basic builder plugins (Read 8267 times)

mmartin

elfprince13

elfprince13

mmartin