My Favorite Liberty BASIC Websites
There are quite a few websites dedicated to Liberty BASIC programming. I have a few favorites, and I'd like to tell you about them. I'll list them in no particular order and tell you what I like about each one.
The Liberty BASIC Forum [http://libertybasic.conforums.com/]
The forum is composed of several separate message boards. This allows you to read the subjects that interest you and skip the others. If you have no use for API programming, then you never need to read that message board! Within a board, the topics are threaded, so you can read an entire topic, both the message and all replies, on one page. If there are lots of replies, the thread may continue on to a second or even a third page, but each page holds many posts.
Each board has an icon that changes when there are new posts since the last time you visited. You can always choose to read the ten most recent posts, by clicking that link near the bottom of the page. If you have a specific question, you can use the "search" feature of the forum, which allows you to choose words to find, which boards to search, and even the time frame for the search.
You must have a valid email address to join the forum, and you must be a member to post messages. You will have a member profile, which allows you to share contact information, and you can even include an avatar and a sig if you'd like. You can choose to keep your email address hidden from others. You can send and receive private messages on the forum, and you can choose to be notified of responses to certain forum postings.
Several helpful people moderate the boards and most questions receive answers very quickly. It is easy to post code, or to quote other messages. You can also easily include hyperlinks and links to images in your posts. Posts can be formatted with many interesting effects, such as text color, tables, smilies, etc. Click the link above and check it out!
The Liberated Code Foundry [http://www.foundrysearch.com/]
This is David Drake's site. He shares many, many programs and all are open source! David has games, multimedia programs, graphics programs, utilities and demos. David shows great attention to detail in his programs. They have a terrifically professional look and they are a wonderful showcase for Liberty BASIC.
Some neat programs:
- BibleFoundry (eBible) - An electronic American Standard Translation Bible with Matthew Henry's Commentary. Tools include scripture and commentary search, personal chapter notes and bookmarks.
- LB Newsletter Database (demo) - A Liberty BASIC newsletter cross-referenced database and reader.
- MediaFoundry (media player) - A cool media player that plays MP3, MPEG, WAV, MIDI, and AVI files. Includes features like full-screen video playback, cue and rewind, and a playlist with a randomize feature. Snazzy and fun
- Open Source Image Editor (multiple format image editor) - Now supports TWAIN devices like scanners! You can crop, rotate, mirror, flip, enlarge or reduce, rescale, and use any of several color and effect filters. Not exactly Paint Shop Pro, but for free, it ain't bad.
- Lingo (game) - A version of the TV game show! Test your vocabulary in this fun two-player word-guessing game.
- PageFoundry (web page utility) - A WYSIWIG web page creator. No HTML knowledge required!
- Polygon area demo (demonstration) - Find the area of a polygon.
- Star Trek, the Text Generation (game) - Ported to Liberty BASIC - A fun legacy Star Trek text game.
- Cryptor.dll (programming add-on) - A simple encryption DLL written especially for Liberty BASIC. Download includes the DLL, DLL source, and an LB example program.
- RPN Calculator (calculator/converter) - An RPN calculator with trig functions and 800 unit conversions. Very cool.
- Breakout Demo (game) - A functional game that resembles Breakout. This is a demonstration of how to create a game in Liberty BASIC.
- Alvin Elf (game) - A cute Christmas game. This is a demonstration of how to create a game in Liberty BASIC.
- Tip-of-the-day code - Portable, reusable TOTD code for your LB program.
- Christmas Hope 2002 (Christmas Card) - A small program that is my Christmas wish for you.
The Liberty Belle [http://www.libertybelle.0catch.com]
Dennis McKinney maintains this site. This is the place to go for custom controls and DLL information. He even offers a tutorial that teaches us how to write a DLL in C!
Some of the great things you will find at The Liberty Belle:
- LB3 Tab Control
- Tab Control updated for LB3. Demos a multiline tab control and detects the tab clicks.
- Uses Brent Thorn's WMLiberty DLL and callbacks.
- Scrollable Windows
- Scrollable window demo. Shows how to add proportional scrollbars to a window, process scroll messages, and recalculate the scrollbars when the window is resized.
- Uses Brent Thorn's WMLiberty DLL and callbacks.
- Easy Tooltips All basic code, no third party dll needed.
- One structure.
- One function.
- One Sub call to add each tooltip.
- Toolbar DLL for Liberty BASIC 3
- The most versatile toolbar dll available.
- Rewritten to take advantage of LB3 callbacks.
- No extra hidden buttons needed. Cleaner, more efficient LB code.
- Create almost any type of toolbar you need, horizontal, vertical, or wrapable.
- Can be used with floating toolwindows.
- Group different styles of buttons.
- Built in tooltips. Use one string to create the tips for the whole toolbar.
- Richedit demo for Liberty BASIC 3
- All basic code, no third party dll needed.
- Demonstrates how to use file streaming callbacks.
- Load and save RTF and TXT file formats.
- Large file support.
- Basic font and color manipulation.
- 32bit richedit custom control for Liberty BASIC 3
- The example LB3 program shows how to use the features built into the control, as well as how to load a control of this type into the LB window. At this time the only type of window it can be used with in LB is the type "window".
- Converting C data types to LB3 data types
- A table of C data types with their matching LB3 data type. Also includes a table listing the size in bytes and the useful range of LB3 numerical data types.
- Treeview Control via API
- One way to use a treeview in LB3. Also shows how to use an ImageList. No dlls required.
John's Homeport [http://www.geocities.com/johnshomeport/]
John shares a variety of interesting and clever demos on his website. His code is formatted beautifully! Do yourself a favor and download all of his programs!
John's programs:
- Code Bank - snippet library.
- Base Converter - numeric conversions.
- Color Pick - select a color from a window or from a palette.
- LBAscii - an ascii reader to get the ascii character set into your editor.
- EzEdges32 - make your guis fancy with this utility!
- RunHelp - get easy access to helpfiles.
- Grid Widget - utility to create a form with rows and columns of controls.
- RTF ReadMe - an RTF reader to include with your applications.
- HTML List Wizard - a utility to create HTML lists really quickly.
The Liberty BASIC Connection [http://www.freewebz.com/lb-connection/]
This is Brad Moore's LB home on the web. He has a bit of everything here! He has code demos, custom DLLs and tutorials. This is a great resource site!
Brad's resources:
- Threaded MIDI file player DLL
- Threaded MP3 file player DLL
- DatePup32 date based DLL
- IsFile file verifier DLL
- Road to Release
- Beginners Guide to API
- The NEW Beginers Series
- Event Driven Programming Series
Bay 6 Software [http://members.aol.com/b6sw/]
This is Brent Thorn's website. It has had several incarnations over the years and Brent has just reinvented it again. Brent is always around to help out with the tricky Windows API stuff. The demos he shares in the forums have made many neat things possible in LB - things like statusbars, tooltips and the date-time-picker control. He also wrote the wmliberty.dll which provides a hook for our programs. We can now grab any messages sent to our programs and process them! The DLL is available at [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lbexp/]
Here's what you can find at Bay 6 Software:
- Conversion Tables
- Converting Win32 Simple Types to LB Types
- Illustrated Tutorials
- Tips and Tricks
- Better Control over FileDialog Titles
- Forcing a Resize Event
- Current Projects
The LB Community Web [http://libertybasic.swiki.net/1]
The CoWeb is a dynamic website that allows anyone with an account to add content in real time. Pages can be edited and new pages can be created easily, right online. Anything goes on the CoWeb. You can find links, snippets, information of all kinds, wishlists, resources, news, user info and lots more. Visit the CoWeb, then write to Carl for an account so that you can make your mark there!
[Editors Note: Of course as you read through Alyce's list of favorite websites you will notice one large omission that I must correct - Alyce's very own
Alyce's Restaurant is a great place for Liberty Basic resources of many kinds. - Thanks Alyce for such a thoughtful article - Brad Moore]