A User's Review of Liberty BASIC Workshop

LBW Authored and Published by Alyce Watson

This Review by David Drake


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Program name: Liberty BASIC Workshop for LB3 version 3.1

Review date: February 21, 2003

Available at: http://alyce.hytext.com/workshop.htm

Download size: 3.2MB

Cost: US$20

User's Rating: 1,000,000,000 Stars

Introduction

Since the introduction of Liberty BASIC there has been a need a comprehensive development environment specific to the language. The editor included with LB has certainly improved with age, and the version that ships with LB3 is the best yet. Experienced users will admit, however, that it lacks panache.

Alyce Watson's IDE, Liberty BASIC Workshop (LBW), definitely has panache.

Overview

LBW is a professional IDE specifically for Liberty BASIC programmers. It is available at Alyce's Restaurant http://alyce.hytext.com/workshop.htm. The 3.2MB shareware download is fully functional for 15 uses. To continue to use it, registration costs US$20. If you want to save some dough, buy the Bundle of Tools, which includes Liberty BASIC Workshop, Mastering Liberty BASIC 3, and Game Workshop for US$30.

NOTICE: This review is only for Liberty BASIC Workshop of LB3. Alyce also has an older version that is just for LB2.

How Liberty BASIC Workshop Resembles the LB Editor

The similarities end there. Look out, world...

Outstandingly Amazing Great Features

LBW has several really BIG features that LB users, seasoned and novice, will quickly come to appreciate.

The GUI Builder

No one is more dedicated to Freeform than yours truly. However, the GUI builder in LBW definitely deserves a close look. When the user clicks the NEW GUI button, a window properies dialog appears (below). In this dialog, one may choose from most of LB's supported window and control properties (much like Freeform). This builder also allows the user to include a real statusbar, tooltips and a timer loop.

One small shortcoming of the GUI builder is that it supports only the following window types: window, window_nf, dialog, dialog_modal, graphics_nsb, and graphics_nf_nsb. This omits several graphics-type windows, several dialog-type windows and the window_popup type. This minor shortcoming won't limit you, though: The supported types account for 95% of the windows you are likely to need.

Adding controls to the window is a snap. Simply click the icon of the control to add (Freeform users will find the icons very familiar) and it pops into the GUI. A properties window for that control appears.

The user may drag or dynamically resize any controls. One great advantage of controls in LBW's GUI builder is that they are REAL WINDOWS CONTROLS. In other words, when you add a button, the object that appears in the GUI window is a true, active button. This is great because the controls you create will appear as they should for your unique operating system and system color settings. One can even arrow or tab through the controls. No more guessing!

On the down side, one feature that the GUI builder lacks is the ability to copy a control.

Adding menus is also easy. The menu editor closely resembles Freeform's.

Forms may be saved and reloaded. The compiled code that the builder generates is clean and compact, with just enough built-in commenting to make it easy to understand. While not as comprehensive as Freeform 3, this GUI Builder is adequate for most window creation needs.

Oh, for those who simply MUST use Freeform, they may still activate it by selecting FREEFORM from the TOOLS menu. ;-)

Other Tools Right at Your Fingertips

The following applications can be activated directly from the menu:

These construction tools are available through the menu:

Several useful preview tools are included with Liberty BASIC Workshop:

Little Features Mean So Much

Summary

Try Liberty BASIC Workshop once and you'll put away the LB editor. US$20 is nothing short of a steal for something this useful and powerful.

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