BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 v0.28a released

[guest]

I have today released version 0.28a of 'BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0', the cross-platform programming language for Windows, Linux, MacOS, Raspberry Pi, Android and iOS. The changes in this version are as follows:

1. IDEs / Compiler

• By popular request, SDLIDE now has a 'Dark Mode' (selected in the Options menu).

• The Debug and Profile facilities now also work in the 64-bit Linux edition, so this has been 'promoted' to fully-functional status rather than experimental (allowing for the inevitable 64-bit differences of course).

• When loading a program from a plain text (.bas) file, trailing spaces are stripped.

2. BASIC Interpreter / Run Time Engine

• A bug in the new x86-64 assembler has been fixed.

• The SYS statement has improved compatibility with the Raspberry Pi's non-standard Hard Float ABI.

3. Libraries

• The dialogue box library 'dlglib.bbc' supports a Dark Mode (but only to the extent needed by SDLIDE).

• The timer library 'timerlib.bbc' has been slightly modified to reduce the possibility of timer interrupts being 'lost' or directed to the wrong handler.

• The 3D graphics library for Android and iOS ('gleslib.bbc') has been adapted to support texture wrapping, but only if the texture has power-of-two dimensions.

4. Example Programs

• The program 'carolmedley.bbc' (in the 'sounds' folder) plays a medley of Christmas carols transcribed for computer in 1981 by Gerald Pye. This is accompanied by a 3D Winter Scene animated in real-time, which illustrates the use of 'alpha testing' and 'texture wrapping'. Please note that this uses a commercial 3D model which may not be reused for other purposes without being re-purchased.

This new version may be downloaded, for all the supported platforms, from the usual location: https://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcsdl/. The released source code (used to build the Raspberry Pi, iOS and 64-bit Linux editions, currently) has been updated to this latest version, and can be found in the same place as previously announced.

This will be the last ever release of the 32-bit MacOS edition, for the good reason that the machine on which it was built died dramatically a few seconds afterwards! At some point there will hopefully be a 64-bit MacOS release but that will need a considerable amount of work.

[p_m21987]

Hello,
Thanks for the update. The new dark mode in SDLIDE is really nice.

Edit: This problem is likely a result of using an out of date linux distro, and therefore isn't important. Sorry.

I'd just like to let you know, I'm experiencing a problem with the 64bit BBCSDL v0.28a. If I enlarge a window (when running a program which is designed to handle that with ON MOVE) the expanded area of the window remains blank.
Here is a screenshot to show what I mean: http://dusthillguy.ddns.net/folder/file ... _scrot.png

The problem doesn't seem to affect programs which use OpenGL, such as the opengl.bbc example program.

The 32bit version of BBCSDL v0.28a doesn't seem to have this problem.

[p_m21987]

I've just found that the problem doesn't seem to happen on my laptop with a more recent version of Debian (therefore a more recent version of SDL) so the problem is probably a result of using an old and out of date Linux distro. Sorry for wasting time.

[guest]

I'd just like to let you know, I'm experiencing a problem

I would prefer you to report problems in a separate thread, not in the 'announcements' section in response to a new release. It's the second successive occasion when you've done that, and it's not very 'supportive'.

As far as the 'problem' itself is concerned I can't reproduce it here. If I open SDLIDE on the desktop (Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS), I can resize or maximize the window and the contents resize to fit as they should. It's unlikely that being 64-bit is anything to do with it, but maybe the version of SDL2 is relevant. I'm using 2.0.8 (from the repository), what version is yours?

[p_m21987]

[quote]I would prefer you to report problems in a separate thread, not in the 'announcements' section in response to a new release. It's the second successive occasion when you've done that, and it's not very 'supportive'.[/quote]
Very sorry about that. I'll remember not to do that again. This will be my last post in this thread, if there's any further need to discuss this matter (which I don't expect) I will start a new thread in the relevant subforum.

This computer seems to have SDL version 2.0.2, so that is quite outdated. I expect that's the cause of the unexpected behaviour. I'm going to update my distribution now.

[guest]

This computer seems to have SDL version 2.0.2, so that is quite outdated.

That's ancient (released in 2014), indeed 2.0.2 is the earliest version that BBCSDL will run on and it's missing some features that are needed for full functionality. Having said that, some more recent versions can also cause problems because they aren't as bug free as one would hope. One of the more 'stable' versions, in my experience, is 2.0.5 (that's what I am currently using on Windows and Android) but superficially 2.0.8 seems to be OK on Linux.