Not sure I am using the right terminology but here are my two cents: The warning that comes up when QB64 is launched (the one about eventually being flagged as a false positive by anti-virus) concerns me. I sometimes worry that QB64 will be blocked by a zealous administrator or security policy.  Could a small step toward increasing the user base be to have the program certified or signed (terminology?) in such a way that this concern is alleviated?  Perhaps this is easier said than done, but maybe the new CEO knows how to deal with this?

LM

I am wondering whether anyone has looked into interacting with Excel files (reading and/or writing), preferably in the .xlsx format but .ods (OpenDocument Spreadsheet) format would be useful too.  I use CSV files a lot (readable and writable by Excel) but could really use a way to read and write directly to XLSX.

Has anyone tried this or does anyone have any suggestions or pointers to how it can be done?  I would be happy if I could get as far as just reading and writing data to cells. Accessing formatting and graphs and such is not as important.

Thanks in advance for any input.

LM

@SMcNeill

I enjoyed reading what you have so far and I look forward to reading the upcoming chapters.  Now I understand why I couldn't get "Screen 256" to work the way I expected.  It would be great if all the functionality worked in this mode too, but at least I know it wasn't because I did something wrong.  Regarding SCREEN 0: I appreciate the deeper explanation of it that you provided. I make quite a bit of use of SCREEN 0. This mode is useful/adequate for many things when graphics are not needed.

One way I learned more about BASIC programming in my childhood/teenage years (in addition to my dad teaching me) was to study the IBM BASIC manual and read the write-up for each command/statement from A to Z. I expect that I will learn many things from reading your book. Your work on this is greatly appreciated!

I’ll chime in and give my 2 cents.  I know I have not been a frequent poster on the forum, but I can tell you that I have been making good use of QB64 since I discovered it about a year and a half ago.  QB64 is already amazing and it is becoming better and better!  Yes, it would be great if it was at the top of the list of the worlds programming languages, but don’t forget that it is already amazing that it has gotten this far and that it is improving.

The QB45 compatibility and familiarity of the interface were the main things that drew me in and made me stay with it instead of going with one of the alternatives I found.  To me, the interface was not a drawback but an asset.  Although I had largely been away from programming for years, I could pick it up and run with it almost immediately because of the prior QB45 and VB6 syntax knowledge.

I think that I represent a type of QB64 user (and I think there are many others like me) who either use QB64 or who would be excited to use it if they discovered it:  I am the middle aged user who started out with BASIC as a child/teenager and got reasonably good at it, but did not have a need to move to another language because BASIC did everything I needed all the way through graduate school and beyond.  My day job is not being a programmer so what a professional programmer needs or uses is of lesser importance to me.  What is most important is that I am able to come up with an idea and implement it using a language that I know (instead of having to start from zero by learning a new language first before I can implement the idea).  I solve problems, and QB64 has enabled me to relatively quickly write programs that help me solve these problems.  The extended functionalities (especially the clipboard functions and image handling functions) have been extremely useful.  QB64 enabled me to write programs that daily save me tremendous amounts of time.  I really appreciate the developers who are keeping QB64 alive and improving, and I appreciate everyone on the forum who responded the times that I did post questions on the forums.  I believe that if I had known about QB64 years ago, I would have been using it already back then.  It is also exciting to see it become more and more useful.  For example, these new debugging features that are being worked on will be game changers.

Again, I believe there must be many like me who do not know about QB64, but who would use it if they knew.  How can those people be reached?

Another type of potential user would be a younger person without prior exposure to/love of BASIC.  What can be done to reach such a person?

In any case, QB64 is extremely useful to me.  Although I usually don’t have time to participate in the discussions on the forum, I often read them and often learn something from them.  Keep up the good work!

L

@LM are you looking for cross platform application because there are alternate ways to get dir files and folders cross platform?

@bplus I am on Windows only at this time and that is where my immediate need is.  I might get on Linux in the future so feel free to share other ways (but I want to be mindful of your time and effort).  I am already using your previous suggestion.  Will save me lots of parsing.  I did not remember that dir had those switches (/b and /l).

I don't understand why this won't work for me.  Any ideas?  I tried it on Windows 8.0 and 10, and I tried both QB64 v1.4 and 1.5.  Here is my problem:

Shell "dir /s >textfile.txt" correctly produces "textfile.txt" like I expect.

Shell "attrib /s >textfile.txt" does not produce the expected "textfile.txt"

If I just run Shell from a QB64 program and manually type "attrib /s >textfile.txt", it does correctly produce the text file.

If I make a .bat file (e.g., "createtextfile.bat") containing "attrib /s >textfile.txt" and then do Shell "createtextfile.bat", then the "textfile.txt" is created.

Any ideas on why attrib won't work from within the QB64 program?  Perhaps there is a more elegant way of getting a listing of all files in the current directory and its sub directories.  I appreciate ideas on that too!

LM

@SpriggsySpriggs
Great catch!  It seems to work after I restarted the Win 8 machine.  I get this with the "medium" setting now:
0
0     0     1920   1080
0     0     1920   1080

With your code preceding the image& = _SCREENIMAGE statement, it appears that it is now grabbing the full screen like I want.  I will try it on the Win 10 machine tomorrow.

I appreciate your effort on this.  Sorry for the back and forth tonight.  Great catch on the restart required in Win 8.

LM

@SpriggsySpriggs
It works now on the Win 10 machine too (with your code).  Thanks!