Creating an application supporting Windows 98

[Bad_Wolf]

Hello all,

Can you give me some advice please.

I need to create an application which has to support Windows 98 to Windows 10. BBC Basic for Windows has many API libraries for creating dialogs. But I assume they will be useless for Windows98.

I have the following questions :

1. How can I detect which version of Windows the application is installed on?

2. From which Windows version can I use those API libraries to create the user interface in a more modern way?

3. Which BBC mode do I use best for my application for those Windows versions which does not support the API libraris?

4. How can I programmatically determine the screen size and resolution?

Thank you very much in advance. I appreciate your help very much.

Wish you a very nice day.

Chris

[guest]

But I assume they will be useless for Windows98.

What makes you think that? Obviously any dialog boxes and controls you create won't have a modern look-and-feel, and there may be a few style bits that are inactive, but the dialog box libraries supplied with BBC BASIC for Windows should work OK on Windows 98. If you can say precisely what functionality you are interested in I can easily test it here; only recently I published a screen shot of BB4W v6.12a running on Windows 95.

The answers to your other questions (if they are still relevant) can mostly be found in the Help documentation.

[guest]

Here's a screen shot of DLGDEMO.BBC running on Windows 95 (OSR2); you can be quite confident that it will also run in Windows 98:

dlgdemo95.png

[Bad_Wolf]

Thank you all for your replies and the usefull information you provided. I appreciate both replies very much.

The dialog provided has exactly the objects I need. For me, they must not be "modern", just functional.Its also great news that also Windows 95 can be supported. So I can support from Windows 95 up to Windows 10. Not much Rapid Application Development tools cover that range. Everything from one source file is another hugh advantage.

The application I am designing will support diabetic people with choosing their food and calculate how much load is there on the body. I want this application to be affordable in a range from the very poor to the wealthy people. That is why the legacy Windows is also important for me. Everybody who has a diabetic problem and like to use this application, should have access to it. Too much people in the third world are dying or suffering from diabetes. I realize many of them will not have a computer, but maybe they can access it from friends or family?

I already read the documentation but it seems there are some important gaps in my reading. I will take a close look again.

Your advice and time spent on my request is much appreciated.

Chris

[KenDown]

Although I have absolutely no experience with Richard's different versions of BBC BASIC, one of them supports everything from Windows to Android. I would suggest that you investigate that if you are serious about supplying your program to the Third World. Many people do not have access to a computer but they do have a mobile phone. An app, as they are called, that runs on Android and Apple should cover just about everybody in the whole wide world these days!

[RichardRussell]

An app, as they are called, that runs on Android and Apple should cover just about everybody in the whole wide world these days!

True, although it should be borne in mind that BBCSDL doesn't support old versions of Android (only KitKat onwards) nor old versions of iOS (only iOS 11 onwards), and there is still no way of creating a standalone iOS app using BBCSDL. So as far as supporting 'obsolete' computing platforms is concerned, BB4W reigns supreme.