Drawing different screens on different monitors from 1 program? (Multi Monitor)

[madscijr]

In that case, I'd use OPENHOST and OPENCLIENT to form a TCP/IP connection between the two programs, ofwhich there are several examples already here on the forums via chat hosts and clients.

TCP/IP between two programs on the same machine?
Interesting...

[SMcNeill]

TCP/IP between two programs on the same machine?
Interesting...

An example for you for testing purposes:

A lot of folks are curious about how we can get our programs to talk to each other, and curious about how we'd use QB64 to communicate via TCP/IP over a network.  The wiki has a few examples, but they tend to be outdated and simply don't work for me.  (Such as the mini-messenger  example here: http://www.qb64.org/wiki/OPENHOST.) I figured people might like a working example of how to get all the proper parts working together, so I tried various wiki samples and eventually decided to rework one until I got it to working for me...

The finished code here is working as intended on Windows. (I dunno if it'll work for Linux or Mac users, but I'd love to hear if it does or doesn't.)  Instead of a single set of code which tries to toggle between client and host, I worked this up as two separate sets of code -- one for each.   Copy one set of code into QB64, and then run it.  Then, while that program is still running in the background, copy the second set of code and run it..  Type in either program and watch as they happily communicate with each other without any issues.

THE HOST:

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. DIM SHARED Users(1 TO 1000) ' array to hold other client info
2. DIM SHARED NumClients
3. DIM SHARED out$
4.  
5.  
6. PRINT "[Steve's Mini Messenger]"
7. host = _OPENHOST("TCP/IP:7319") ' no host found, so begin new host
8. IF host THEN
9.     PRINT "[Beginning new host chat session!]"
10.     NumClients = 0
11.     client = _OPENCLIENT("TCP/IP:7319:localhost")
12.     IF client = 0 THEN PRINT "ERROR: could not attach host's personal client to host!"
13.     INPUT "Enter your name:", myname$
14.     'PRINT #client, myname$ + " connected!"
15.     PRINT "[Chat session active!]"
16. ELSE
17.     PRINT "ERROR: Could not begin new host!"
18. END IF ' host
19.  
20.  
21. DO ' host main loop
22.     newclient = _OPENCONNECTION(host) ' receive any new connection
23.     IF newclient THEN
24.         NumClients = NumClients + 1
25.         Users(NumClients) = newclient
26.         PRINT "Welcome to Steve's Mini Messenger!"
27.     END IF
28.     FOR i = 1 TO NumClients
29.         GetMessage Users(i) 'check all clients for a message
30.         IF out$ <> "" THEN
31.             l = LEN(out$)
32.             FOR j = 1 TO NumClients ' distribute incoming messages to all clients
33.                 PUT #Users(j), , l
34.                 PUT #Users(j), , out$
35.             NEXT
36.         END IF
37.     NEXT i
38.  
39.     SendMessage myname$, mymessage$, client
40.     _LIMIT 30
41. LOOP
42.  
43.  
44. SUB GetMessage (client) ' get & display any new message
45.     GET #client, , l
46.     IF l > 0 THEN
47.         out$ = SPACE$(l)
48.         GET #client, , out$
49.         VIEW PRINT 1 TO 20
50.         LOCATE 20, 1
51.         PRINT out$
52.         VIEW PRINT 1 TO 24
53.     ELSE
54.         out$ = ""
55.     END IF
56. END SUB
57.  
58. SUB SendMessage (myname$, mymessage$, client) ' simple input handler
59.     k$ = INKEY$
60.     IF LEN(k$) THEN
61.         IF k$ = CHR$(8) AND LEN(mymessage$) <> 0 THEN
62.             mymessage$ = LEFT$(mymessage$, LEN(mymessage$) - 1)
63.         ELSE
64.             IF LEN(k$) = 1 AND ASC(k$) >= 32 THEN mymessage$ = mymessage$ + k$
65.         END IF
66.     END IF
67.     VIEW PRINT 1 TO 24
68.     LOCATE 22, 1: PRINT SPACE$(80); ' erase previous message displayed
69.     LOCATE 22, 1: PRINT myname$ + ": "; mymessage$;
70.     IF k$ = CHR$(13) THEN ' [Enter] sends the message
71.         IF mymessage$ = "" THEN SYSTEM ' [Enter] with no message ends program
72.         mymessage$ = myname$ + ":" + mymessage$
73.         l = LEN(mymessage$)
74.         PUT #client, , l
75.         PUT #client, , mymessage$
76.         mymessage$ = ""
77.     END IF
78.     IF k$ = CHR$(27) THEN SYSTEM ' [Esc] key ends program
79. END SUB

THE CLIENT:

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. DIM SHARED out$
2.  
3.  
4. PRINT "[Steve's Mini Messenger]"
5. client = _OPENCLIENT("TCP/IP:7319:localhost") ' Attempt to connect to local host as a client
6. PRINT "[connected to " + _CONNECTIONADDRESS(client) + "]"
7.  
8. INPUT "Enter your name: ", myname$
9. out$ = myname$ + " connected!"
10. l = LEN(out$)
11. PUT #client, , l
12. PUT #client, , out$
13. DO
14.     GetMessage client
15.     SendMessage myname$, mymessage$, client ' display current input on screen
16.     _LIMIT 30
17. LOOP
18.  
19. '.................... END OF MAIN PROGRAM ................
20.  
21.  
22. SUB GetMessage (client) ' get & display any new message
23.     GET #client, , l
24.     IF l > 0 THEN
25.         out$ = SPACE$(l)
26.         GET #client, , out$
27.         VIEW PRINT 1 TO 20
28.         LOCATE 20, 1
29.         PRINT out$
30.         VIEW PRINT 1 TO 24
31.     ELSE
32.         out$ = ""
33.     END IF
34. END SUB
35.  
36. SUB SendMessage (myname$, mymessage$, client) ' simple input handler
37.     k$ = INKEY$
38.     IF LEN(k$) THEN
39.         IF k$ = CHR$(8) AND LEN(mymessage$) <> 0 THEN
40.             mymessage$ = LEFT$(mymessage$, LEN(mymessage$) - 1)
41.         ELSE
42.             IF LEN(k$) = 1 AND ASC(k$) >= 32 THEN mymessage$ = mymessage$ + k$
43.         END IF
44.     END IF
45.     VIEW PRINT 1 TO 24
46.     LOCATE 22, 1: PRINT SPACE$(80); ' erase previous message displayed
47.     LOCATE 22, 1: PRINT myname$ + ": "; mymessage$;
48.     IF k$ = CHR$(13) THEN ' [Enter] sends the message
49.         IF mymessage$ = "" THEN SYSTEM ' [Enter] with no message ends program
50.         mymessage$ = myname$ + ":" + mymessage$
51.         l = LEN(mymessage$)
52.         PUT #client, , l
53.         PUT #client, , mymessage$
54.         mymessage$ = ""
55.     END IF
56.     IF k$ = CHR$(27) THEN SYSTEM ' [Esc] key ends program
57. END SUB
58.  

Have fun playing around with this as a local system messenger program.  Try it out, kick it around, and let me know if there's anything you don't understand about what it's doing.  This isn’t exactly how I'd normally write one of these; but that's because I started with what the wiki had and then gutted it and rebuilt it up until it was actually working  for me as it should.  Honestly, I think I would've been better off to have just wrote the whole program from scratch!  :P

[OldMoses]

Now that was a refreshing experience. I got in a chat war with myself. You should have seen the insults... ;)