all of the predecessor i would just open the archive and copy everything to qb64 folder. this version tells me I'll need to give administrative right for a 3.10.0 folder of some sort. anybody got a clue? And I can't compile a thing either.

These new keywords are dang cool, man. I remember trying to use PowerShell to make small scripts that I would call from within QB64 to generate my files at runtime, which was ALWAYS a pain in the butt due to the quotes and such. Then Dav had his algorithm for doing it and it made it easy but still a pain for multiple files. Now we've got RhoSigma to thank for making this whole thing headache-free. It's probably one of the most game-changing things I've seen from QB64 in a long time. Bravo, guys. Bravo.

Has anyone head of a command "EXECUTE" in basic?? I have been trying to write a routine which will create a number of arrays with similar names however the name is to end with a unique number. After creating the arrays, each one is to have a difference upper limit. For example, the array names would look like - Array1(1 to 25), Array2(1 to 85), Array3(1 to 15) etc. I have tried this before and there is no way QB64PE can create array names on the fly using concatenation. Recently I was told I needed to use EXECUTE and this would create a new array name with a number concated to it. The example I was given is 

 EXECUTE "DIM SHARED DataHistory" + STR$(Number) + "(" + STR$(EVENT(Number)) + ") AS INTEGER"

Is Execute in some other basic syntax??

SCREEN _NEWIMAGE(640, 480, 32)

$COLOR:32



NoSymbol 100, 100, Black, White

SLEEP

CLS

MaleSymbol 100, 100, Black, Red

SLEEP

CLS

FeMaleSymbol 100, 100, Black, Pink

SLEEP

CLS

InterSexSymbol 100, 100, Purple, Pink

SLEEP

CLS

SYSTEM



SUB NoSymbol (x AS INTEGER, y AS INTEGER, kolor AS _UNSIGNED LONG, background AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    LINE (x, y)-STEP(150, 255), background, BF

    ThickCircle 55 + x, 100 + y, 50, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 15 + x, 135 + y, 90 + x, 65 + y, 5, kolor

END SUB





SUB MaleSymbol (x AS INTEGER, y AS INTEGER, kolor AS _UNSIGNED LONG, background AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    LINE (x, y)-STEP(150, 255), background, BF

    ThickCircle 55 + x, 100 + y, 50, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 90 + x, 65 + y, 130 + x, 25 + y, 5, kolor

    TriangleFill 145 + x, 10 + y, 142 + x, 35 + y, 117 + x, 15 + y, kolor

END SUB



SUB FeMaleSymbol (x AS INTEGER, y AS INTEGER, kolor AS _UNSIGNED LONG, background AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    LINE (x, y)-STEP(150, 255), background, BF

    ThickCircle 55 + x, 100 + y, 50, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 55 + x, 150 + y, 55 + x, 250 + y, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 5 + x, 200 + y, 105 + x, 200 + y, 5, kolor

END SUB



SUB InterSexSymbol (x AS INTEGER, y AS INTEGER, kolor AS _UNSIGNED LONG, background AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    LINE (x, y)-STEP(150, 255), background, BF

    ThickCircle 55 + x, 100 + y, 50, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 55 + x, 150 + y, 55 + x, 250 + y, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 5 + x, 200 + y, 105 + x, 200 + y, 5, kolor

    ThickLine 90 + x, 65 + y, 130 + x, 25 + y, 5, kolor

    TriangleFill 145 + x, 10 + y, 142 + x, 35 + y, 117 + x, 15 + y, kolor

END SUB





SUB ThickLine (x1, y1, x2, y2, thk, kolor AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    'draw a line of thickness thk on color klr from x1,y1 to x2,y2

    'orientation of line is set in the middle of line thickness

    STATIC tempimage AS LONG, m AS _MEM

    IF tempimage = 0 THEN tempimage = _NEWIMAGE(1, 1, 32): m = _MEMIMAGE(tempimage)

    $CHECKING:OFF

    _MEMPUT m, m.OFFSET, kolor

    $CHECKING:ON

    cang = _ATAN2((y2 - y1), (x2 - x1)) 'get the angle from x1,y1 to x2,y2

    ta = cang + _PI(.5)

    tb = ta + _PI

    tax1 = x1 + (thk / 2) * COS(ta): tay1 = y1 + (thk / 2) * SIN(ta)

    tax4 = x1 + (thk / 2) * COS(tb): tay4 = y1 + (thk / 2) * SIN(tb)

    tax2 = x2 + (thk / 2) * COS(ta): tay2 = y2 + (thk / 2) * SIN(ta)

    tax3 = x2 + (thk / 2) * COS(tb): tay3 = y2 + (thk / 2) * SIN(tb)

    _MAPTRIANGLE (0, 0)-(0, 0)-(0, 0), tempimage TO(tax1, tay1)-(tax2, tay2)-(tax4, tay4)

    _MAPTRIANGLE (0, 0)-(0, 0)-(0, 0), tempimage TO(tax2, tay2)-(tax3, tay3)-(tax4, tay4)

END SUB





SUB ThickCircle (x AS SINGLE, y AS SINGLE, radius AS SINGLE, thickness AS SINGLE, colour AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    DIM rp AS SINGLE, rm AS SINGLE, rp2 AS SINGLE, rm2 AS SINGLE

    DIM sm AS SINGLE, rpi2 AS SINGLE, rmi2 AS SINGLE, sp AS SINGLE

    DIM i AS SINGLE



    rp = radius + thickness / 2

    rm = radius - thickness / 2

    rp2 = rp ^ 2

    rm2 = rm ^ 2

    FOR i = -rp TO -rm STEP .2

        rpi2 = rp2 - i ^ 2

        sp = SQR(rpi2)

        LINE (x + i, y)-(x + i, y + sp), colour, BF

        LINE (x + i, y)-(x + i, y - sp), colour, BF

    NEXT

    FOR i = -rm TO 0 STEP .2

        rpi2 = rp2 - i ^ 2

        rmi2 = rm2 - i ^ 2

        sm = SQR(rmi2)

        sp = SQR(rpi2)

        LINE (x + i, y + sm)-(x + i, y + sp), colour, BF

        LINE (x - i, y + sm)-(x - i, y + sp), colour, BF

        LINE (x + i, y - sm)-(x + i, y - sp), colour, BF

        LINE (x - i, y - sm)-(x - i, y - sp), colour, BF

    NEXT

    FOR i = rm TO rp STEP .2

        rpi2 = rp2 - i ^ 2

        sp = SQR(rpi2)

        LINE (x + i, y)-(x + i, y + sp), colour, BF

        LINE (x + i, y)-(x + i, y - sp), colour, BF

    NEXT

END SUB



SUB TriangleFill (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, K AS _UNSIGNED LONG)

    $CHECKING:OFF

    STATIC a&, m AS _MEM

    IF a& = 0 THEN a& = _NEWIMAGE(1, 1, 32): m = _MEMIMAGE(a&)

    _MEMPUT m, m.OFFSET, K

    _MAPTRIANGLE _SEAMLESS(0, 0)-(0, 0)-(0, 0), a& TO(x1, y1)-(x2, y2)-(x3, y3)

    $CHECKING:ON

END SUB

Sorry guys,

I don't know if this is the correct forum, but does anyone know, how I can delete suggestions in the search field on the top of this site? "Operating system" always pops out when I am entering the field.




The browser history, cache and cookies are already deleted for the whole time. I am using an actual Chrome browser on Windows 11.

Although I can't think of a glowing use case for this, it has been on my mind for the last couple of days.

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

Just saying _DirExists does not work with long pathnames won't cut it, so: (a semi-short justification)

I collect manga (read into it as comics not from the usual sources).  Many languages are used.  Among them is Japanese.  A very likely encounter is a very long pathname.  The Japanese authors tend to name a manga, with a history of it's content.  When the kanji romanized title is created it could get long.  When a translation group decide to translate (remember it's in Japanese) the manga title maybe English translated to something even longer.

example:
JP: A very long kanji title how Superman went to the beach with Lois, but meets up Lex Luthor / gang and a big battle ensues.  <-- mind you this is long already.
would be translated to English as:

Eng: Superman is asked to go to the beach by Lois Lane and have a picnic.  After they setup, Lex Luthor and is ominous gang show up and fight starts.  After long battle Superman wins but asks Luthor to stay and enjoy the picnic.  Lex agrees and says he will buy the steaks.

This is a silly problem, trans groups should more aware how long the titles get and shorten them.  My problem they are stupid and I have a title with a 277 characters long pathname.
_DirExists fails on something that long.

final note: Why use _DirExists.  Simple!  To detect special characters (umlauts and such) in directory names.  Shell out and capture the directory names.  Do a _DirExists on the list.  Anything that exists but still can't be tested with _DirExists.  Contains special characters.  I have to treat them specially different.

If you have read to this point you are either.  1) Bored with the New Years weekend. or 2) Really love QB64pe and want it to work correctly.  I suspect a little of both.
The problem exists on windows.  Windows will allow very long pathnames and many sub directories exceeding the 257 character limit.  Won't complain until you try to copy or move it.

Thanks for reading this far.
ps. Newer versions of windows allow longer than 257, the caveat losing backwards compatibility to earlier versions.

Just noticed it was your birthday today!  I hope it's been a good one for you.  

I was inspired by a program for Linux called Kali that allows creating wallpapers from simple polygons. Basically it repeated a pattern over the whole screen, by flipping or replication. The program is quite good and I installed it into one of my Debian "Bookworm" installations.

I don't give the link to the program because the GUI appears to be FLTK and some of you aren't familiar or aren't comfortable with that style. The FLTK is an older GUI programming toolkit than GTK and Qt. Also it might be installable via a "dot-DEB" file only, which some people have become as suspicious as Windows installers. :/

Also the Kali program doesn't straight out save to JPEG or PNG or other popular format, but in EPS Postscript format. This might not be sufficient importing the EPS into GIMP converting to another format with Imagemagick.

Just look it up in search service, but write "kali drawing" because just putting down "kali" might give entries about Kali Linux. Which is not what I was talking about here.

Anyway, here's a program that creates 20 pictures that could be used as wallpapers for a 15-inch laptop (1366x768 resolution). Feel free to adjust it to your tastes. For each pass, it creates polygons from triangle to octagon inclusive and draws them repeatedly according to fixed horizontal and vertical offsets. Each polygon is given an initial 32-bit color value, then one of the registers is "bounced" back and forth like in a gradient to increase interest in the picture. The actual screen to save is hidden but written to, because it's too big to fit into my screen including the window titlebar and frame. Instead a 67%-scale screen is shown of what it was like.

Note the line with ```_SAVEIMAGE``` is commented out. In my version it saves in QOI format because I wanted to check out the plug-in for GIMP which could save and load those files. This plug-in cannot be used in Debian "Bullseye" or earlier, unfortunately. In the open file requester in GIMP, must check enabled "Show all files" to be able to see and select a QOI file.

Happy New Year to all members of this forum and to everybody.

'by mnrvovrfc 30-Dec-2023

$IF VERSION < 3.10 THEN

        $ERROR Must compile in QB64 Phoenix Edition v3.10 or later!

$END IF

OPTION _EXPLICIT

DIM polyg(1 TO 8) AS LONG, x(1 TO 8) AS INTEGER, y(1 TO 8) AS INTEGER

DIM AS LONG thisp, displayp, cu

DIM AS INTEGER j, u, w, wd, ht, wi, hi, xx, yy, rr, gg, bb, x1, y1

DIM AS INTEGER ri, gi, bi, v

DIM afile$, goahead AS _BYTE, nn AS DOUBLE



RANDOMIZE TIMER



wd = 200

ht = 150



thisp = _newimage(1366, 768, 32)

displayp = _NEWIMAGE(915, 515, 32)



SCREEN displayp



FOR w = 1 TO 20

    _DEST thisp

    CLS

    FOR j = 3 TO 8

        DO

            FOR u = 1 TO 7

                polyg(u) = Random1(359)

            NEXT

            DO

                goahead = 1

                FOR u = 1 TO 6

                    IF polyg(u) < polyg(u + 1) THEN

                        SWAP polyg(u), polyg(u + 1)

                        goahead = 0

                        EXIT FOR

                    END IF

                NEXT

            LOOP UNTIL goahead

            goahead = 1

            FOR u = 1 TO 6

                IF ABS(polyg(u) - polyg(u + 1)) <= 30 THEN goahead = 0: EXIT FOR

            NEXT

        LOOP UNTIL goahead

        FOR u = 1 TO 7

            nn = polyg(u) * 1E+6

            polyg(u) = INT(_D2R(nn))

        NEXT

        polyg(j) = polyg(1)

        DO

            rr = Rand(8, 85) * 3

            gg = Rand(8, 85) * 3

            bb = Rand(8, 85) * 3

        LOOP UNTIL rr >= 96 OR gg >= 96 OR bb >= 96

        IF rr > 127 THEN ri = -2 ELSE ri = 2

        IF gg > 127 THEN gi = -2 ELSE gi = 2

        IF bb > 127 THEN bi = -2 ELSE bi = 2

        v = INT(RND * 3 + 1)

        SELECT CASE v

            CASE 1

                gg = 0: bb = 0

            CASE 2

                rr = 0: bb = 0

            CASE 3

                rr = 0: gg = 0

        END SELECT

        wi = (wd \ 2) + Random1(wd \ 2) - (wd \ 4)

        hi = (ht \ 2) + Random1(ht \ 2) - (ht \ 4)

        FOR u = 1 TO j

            x(u) = _CEIL(COS(polyg(u) / 1E+6) * wi)

            y(u) = _CEIL(SIN(polyg(u) / 1E+6) * hi)

        NEXT

        xx = -1366

        DO UNTIL xx > 1366

            yy = -768

            DO UNTIL yy > 768

                goahead = 0

                FOR u = 1 TO j

                    x1 = x(u) + xx

                    y1 = y(u) + yy

                    IF ((x1 < 0) OR (x1 > 1366)) AND ((y1 < 0) OR (y1 > 768)) THEN goahead = goahead + 1

                NEXT

                IF goahead < j THEN

                    cu = _RGB(rr, gg, bb)

                    IF ri THEN

                        rr = rr + ri

                        IF rr < 48 OR rr > 255 THEN

                            ri = ri * -1

                            rr = rr + ri

                        END IF

                    END IF

                    IF gi THEN

                        IF gg < 48 OR gg > 255 THEN

                            gi = gi * -1

                            gg = gg + gi

                        END IF

                    END IF

                    IF bi THEN

                        IF bb < 48 OR bb > 255 THEN

                            bi = bi * -1

                            bb = bb + bi

                        END IF

                    END IF

                    x1 = x(1) + xx

                    y1 = y(1) + yy

                    PSET (x1, y1)

                    FOR u = 2 TO j

                        x1 = x(u) + xx

                        y1 = y(u) + yy

                        LINE -(x1, y1), cu

                    NEXT

                END IF

                yy = yy + hi

            LOOP

            xx = xx + wi

        LOOP

    NEXT

    _DEST displayp

    _PUTIMAGE (0, 0)-(914, 514), thisp, displayp, (0, 0)-(1365, 767)

    'afile$ = ENVIRON$("HOME") + "/Pictures/mirrorbagli" + Zeroes$(w, 2) + ".qoi"

    '_SAVEIMAGE afile$, thisp

    _DELAY 3

NEXT

SYSTEM



FUNCTION Rand& (fromval&, toval&)

    DIM sg%, f&, t&

    IF fromval& = toval& THEN

        Rand& = fromval&

        EXIT FUNCTION

    END IF

    f& = fromval&

    t& = toval&

    IF (f& < 0) AND (t& < 0) THEN

        sg% = -1

        f& = f& * -1

        t& = t& * -1

    ELSE

        sg% = 1

    END IF

    IF f& > t& THEN SWAP f&, t&

    Rand& = INT(RND * (t& - f& + 1) + f&) * sg%

END FUNCTION



FUNCTION Random1& (maxvaluu&)

    DIM sg%

    sg% = SGN(maxvaluu&)

    IF sg% = 0 THEN

        Random1& = 0

    ELSE

        IF sg% = -1 THEN maxvaluu& = maxvaluu& * -1

        Random1& = INT(RND * maxvaluu& + 1) * sg%

    END IF

END FUNCTION



FUNCTION Zeroes$ (num AS LONG, numdig AS INTEGER)

    DIM b$, v AS LONG

    DIM AS INTEGER sg, hx

    IF num < 0 THEN sg = -1: num = num * -1

    IF numdig < 0 THEN hx = 1: numdig = numdig * -1 ELSE hx = 0

    IF hx THEN

        b$ = HEX$(num)

    ELSE

        b$ = LTRIM$(STR$(num))

    END IF

    v = numdig - LEN(b$)

    IF v > 0 THEN b$ = STRING$(v, 48) + b$

    IF sg = -1 THEN b$ = "-" + b$

    Zeroes$ = b$

END FUNCTION

  Steves Poker Playhouse.7z (Size: 44.94 KB / Downloads: 72)

Who doesn't like a quick game of poker?

Game here is another piece of ancient history, written more-or-less as a tutorial in days-gone-by to showcase how simple it is to write a poker program.  Some folks think the logic for these things has to be complex as heck -- it doesn't.  

Honestly, I can't think of too many games that are any simpler than this one was to make.