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Liberty BASIC Help Online

Editor Preferences

Liberty BASIC Preferences

See also: The Liberty BASIC Editor

Notification:

Confirm on exit of Liberty BASIC - This causes Liberty BASIC to ask "Are you sure?" when you try to close down the Liberty BASIC editor.

Display execution notice - This causes Liberty BASIC to display an execution complete notice in a program's main window (if it has one) when it is finished running.

Starting up:

Start Liberty BASIC Editor full-screen - This causes Liberty BASIC to open the editor so that it fills the whole screen whenever Liberty BASIC is started up.

Load on startup:

No file - This causes Liberty BASIC to start with no text in the editor, and a filename of untitled.bas.

Most recent file - This causes Liberty BASIC to start with the file the user was editing when it was last shut down.

This file - This causes Liberty BASIC to start with the file specified in the text field.

Compiling:

Show Compile Progress Dialog - This causes a popup dialog to appear when compiling for Run, Debug, Lite Debug, or Make TKN file. The user can press a cancel button on the dialog to abort the compile action.

Enable Compiler Reporting - This tells the compiler to apply certain compile checks and list any interesting results at the bottom of the Liberty BASIC editor window. See Compiler Reporting.

Create *.BAK File On Run/Debug - This activates a backup mechanism so that every time a program is run, it is also backed up into a file of the same name, but with a BAK extension. The user can also specify where to save these files by typing the location into the textbox provided. As an example, a path to a different hard drive could be specified as protection against hard drive failure.

Environment:

Use Syntax Coloring - This toggles the editor's syntax coloring mechanism. Check this box to see color syntax in the editor, or uncheck it to use the system default colors for text.

Enable Auto Indenting - This feature causes the Liberty BASIC editor to copy the level of indenting of the current line to a new line when Enter is pressed. It also has some support for back-tabbing.

Add 'Kill BASIC Apps' to all Windows - This adds a special menu item to the system menu of each window in the Liberty BASIC environment (this menu item can also be found in the Liberty BASIC editor Run menu). This feature is useful if your BASIC program will not close or shut down, because it allows you to kill any BASIC program started from the Liberty BASIC editor.

Main window columns/rows - This sets the default size of the main window for any BASIC program started from the Liberty BASIC editor.

Source filename extension - This specifies the filename extension to use for BASIC programs. The default is BAS, but the user can change it to something else if desired. This is especially useful to prevent filename collision if the programmer also uses other versions of BASIC or other applications that use BAS as a filename extension.

Reload File on Activate - When this option is set, Liberty BASIC will check to see if a newer version of the currently loaded file exists and load it into the editor, replacing what is there. This only happens on activation of the editor, meaning that some window other than the Liberty BASIC editor was made active (another editor or GUI drawing program perhaps), and then the editor is made the active window again by clicking on it or by bringing it to the front in some other fashion (pressing Alt-Tab for example). Why this is useful: Some programmers may prefer to use their favorite text editor to write code, saving the code when they are ready to try running or debugging it. Liberty BASIC will be open on that file, so after they save in the other editor and switch to Liberty BASIC, with Reload File on Activate the newest saved version of the file is automatically reloaded into Liberty BASIC, and all that is needed to run it is to use the Run menu or to press Shift+F5.