Getting the ball rolling. Which VB6 projects are you working on?

First class stuff, didn't know it existed, very useful! Are you still keeping it updated? I think I could use it.
Your development environment must have changed over the years from the days of Win95, 66mhz to 3.0ghz quad core I might imagine and the MS BASIC language version from QB or PBS to VBn to VB6 or similar?

It is fascinating how for many of us, our work environment and life has changed so much in all that time whilst the essential component that enables all of our creativity, the VB6 IDE and language has stayed exactly the same. The same place to work regardless of all.

This is a component for editing correspondence, among other types of text. It's almost finished. I've been working on it since 2009. : eek:

Sorry, the control text is in Portuguese.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

First class stuff, didn't know it existed, very useful! Are you still keeping it updated? I think I could use it.
Your development environment must have changed over the years from the days of Win95, 66mhz to 3.0ghz quad core I might imagine and the MS BASIC language version from QB or PBS to VBn to VB6 or similar?

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Thanks bro!

You're looking at a recent release - within the last year. The pace of future development will probably drop off however as I'm having to reenter the work force.

The first version was created using VB3

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Originally Posted by Episcopal

This is a component for editing correspondence, among other types of text. It's almost finished. I've been working on it since 2009. : eek:

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2009 isn't so bad, it is only 12 years! Is there an English language version? What do you see the editor being used for specifically, when completed? What was the working environment in that time?

What is your editor called, does it have a name and a link?

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Originally Posted by AAraya

The first version was created using VB3

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Has the core functionality always been more or less the same? What was the development machine under win95, do you remember?

I remember using a directory differences tool under open VMS years ago and it was an essential component when I maintained the systems that controlled the chocolate factory at MARS back in the late 1990s. We used it to compare the folder structures of two different machines over DECnet.

Looks like your tool has been a good source of income over the years.

We are taking far too long on our projects. I remember when working on my project in QuickBasic v1.00 for DOS 5.00, even. and then now it's on the windows platform, then

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

Has the core functionality always been more or less the same? What was the development machine under win95, do you remember?

I remember using a directory differences tool under open VMS years ago and it was an essential component when I maintained the systems that controlled the chocolate factory at MARS back in the late 1990s. We used it to compare the folder structures of two different machines over DECnet.

Looks like your tool has been a good source of income over the years.

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Initial development was either on a 386 or 486, can't recall which.

The core functionality of comparing folders has always been there but the implementation has evolved quite a bit to make it more scalable, performant, handle error conditions better, handle Unicode file/folder names, etc.... Additional related functionality has been added over the years.

Over the last 18 years, FolderMatch has provided a full time income for about 10 years and part time income for about 8. Before that it was basically pizza money. It's had a good run in the world of shareware.

Now with so much of the world moving away from desktop applications and the flood of quality freeware, it's harder.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

2009 isn't so bad, it is only 12 years! Is there an English language version? What do you see the editor being used for specifically, when completed? What was the working environment in that time?

What is your editor called, does it have a name and a link?

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When I started to develop this component I was young. Today I realize that I need to refactor the code, which should even take 2 weeks. This will make you faster. There are 12 more years of experience.

It's actually in English, it's just the content of the label and button that are in Portuguese.

This component is much more advanced than the windows wordpad. However, I still haven't worked on the zoom issue. But it is easy to implement. What was more difficult was to implement the insertion of rows and columns (before and after) in tables.

The component is called WordProcessor.

Wait the RichTextbox can be used as a word processor, hey dude

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Originally Posted by ThEiMp

Wait the RichTextbox can be used as a word processor, hey dude

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As I said, the wordprocessor component can go beyond wordpad or richtextbox. It was customized.

Edit: However, it is inferior to Ms Word.

sure as hell could be. The Word app, has things like many features that you can't find else where, also at that. I am able to show graphics and tables, in my version of RichTextBox ActiveX control

This is an application which I wrote some time ago for CAT (Computer Aided Transceiver) control for Amateur Radio use. It was written specifically for use with the Yaesu FT-891 & FT-991 transceivers. Frequency display, analog meter, status indicators and all controls are updated in real time. It is intended to be freeware. It has not as of yet been completely finished nor released because I had to move on to other things but it is about 85% complete and most functionality is there. The entire program is written in VB6. The interface is rendered at runtime using GDI+.

Attachment 180535

Once again, a good interface. Are you intending to complete it when you have time? What did you code it on and how long has it taken you to get this far? The code for that meter and that signal analyser would be interesting to see.

I do plan to finish but no timetable right now. I was forced to sell the radio (an FT-991A) which I was using to help write this. Written mostly on an HP/Compaq 7900 machine running Windows 7, and some parts written over lunch on a Microsoft Surface Go laptop running Windows 10.

The analog meter is pretty simple actually - the meter face is a picture (there are several to choose from in the program), and the pointer is simply rendered with rotation about a center axis using GDI+ with smoothing. The incoming signal from the radio is a variable value from 0 to 255, and the meter code calculates the correct pointer position from that value for the reading. There is a lookup table for fine calibration. One can also right-click on the meter face and it will toggle between analog and digital bar graph style meters.

The digital mode stuff at the bottom isn't mine. The engine for that is a free and very good OCX control from Here. It was an experiment in this program.

In a later version, I dumped the digi mode decoder and replaced it with an analog tuning scale, also rendered with GDI+

Righto, understood. Do you have any links for the in-progress version or will you only release when it is of usable-quality?

i guess he hasn't got any in-progress version, he may want to give. because it might cause him to loose copyright rights to his product

It really isn't a product per se because it will be freeware as in no charge, no money, nada. I haven't released it yet because I don't feel that it is ready, and I haven't had time to work on it for awhile due to my day job in the fitness industry. And I no longer have the radio which I was using to test it with but I might buy another so that I can finish it at some point.....

Cool

Because I do become bored and have an inclination to do the thing that interests me more than the thing I should be doing... I have to have a side-project or two to distract me when I am bogged down (or bored).

I have done a lot with my main project, steamyDock but on occasion I find myself Docked-out. It is solved by some beer (good beer) and a snack or two and a diversion into something else.

In addition a side project or two is useful to have.

I have created a tool with a lot of help from a friend called fire call that is a peer to peer communications tool that encrypts text and drops files onto its UI. I use it to exchange data, text, chat and files between the two of us that work closely together.

It was written in .javascript and uses the old YWE framework to place web apps on the desktop. Everything that I type or send to him appears on his desktop within seconds, so it is only semi real time - but for us and the way we work it feels real time.

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/1.png

This is the .js version on my desktop, more advanced than the VB6 version in some respects, no form, transparent background.

I am knocking up a VB6 version, first of all the configuration utility, menus &c and then afterwards the main VB6 form that I am currently devising, I want it to be practical and look good, not always easy with a standard VB6 form!

This is the config utility from the .js version

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/2.png

This is the config utility from the windows version

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/3.png

I'm obviously still working on it but on the whole is it not too dissimilar - and that is the point entirely. A better font, some tweaking of the text and reading all that data from a configuration file on startup and it will start to look better and better.

I work at it from time to time without worrying about whether it functions or not, the idea is to test the migration from .js to VB6 and judge the workload, thence to VB.NET/TwinBasic/RADBasic, not decided which yet.

Some immunity from pending obsolescence is part of the reason.

Just waking this thread from the dead by the power invested in me as the OP.

This is what I am doing at the moment - until I become bored of course.

I have made some progress on that communication 'chat' utility that I am working on. The preferences/config screen read/validates and writes user configuration changes to a config file in the user appdata location - and the nice thing is now I have a template for any future preference/config forms that my VB6 programs need.

I have more or less created the interface for the tool and I'm now implementing the chat utility itself. The interface is my own style as always.

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/6.png
Right click and view image for full detail.

Shown on my laptop's small screen Windows desktop.

[Edit: Updated the screenshot to show the application/chat in action]
[Edit: Updated the screenshot to show the application new buttons and lamps]

That's so cool, hey dude!!

You lot must be up to something VB6-ish, do let us know what you are working on. Do you just work on one project, do you multi-project or do you have side projects?

Well I have side projects and major projects of mine, even so

Don't just say so, show us! Pictures please.

It's not covered by copyright as per late yet. so then have to wait for the design to finish up off with, then

Well, I look forward to seeing it.

This is the latest version of my person to person chat tool.

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/10.png

The UI is more or less fixed now, just fixing bugs and ensuring all the config options work. I fix approximately 5 bugs per day, that is a very small amount caused by family commitments that take all my time.

Someone else post what they are doing, something interesting is out there I am sure.

Needs a serious overhaul.

Throw away the goofy dollybuttons taking up all of that space on the right. Fix that row of buttons with cryptic abbreviated labels, maybe even replace them by a dropdown list or a menu. Get rid of the awful dank background color. Fix the entry textbox, it doesn't fit the font correctly. Why doesn't this stuff follow the user's UI theme anyway?

What a train wreck.

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Originally Posted by dilettante

Needs a serious overhaul.

Throw away the goofy dollybuttons taking up all of that space on the right. Fix that row of buttons with cryptic abbreviated labels, maybe even replace them by a dropdown list or a menu. Get rid of the awful dank background color. Fix the entry textbox, it doesn't fit the font correctly. Why doesn't this stuff follow the user's UI theme anyway?

What a train wreck.

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Pretty sure he's said in previous posts that it is a program that is used exclusively by 2 people - himself and a friend - to communicate. The UI isn't my cup of tea either, but I doubt it has been designed to aesthetically appeal to you or me or any general populace. If you made a program that only you would use, I would imagine you would make some design decisions that you wouldn't make if it were a program for general public use. Or maybe not, who knows.

Oh, absolutely. I do not design the UI to appeal to anyone here. IF you don't like it then that is to be expected, no apologies for the design.

My designs are specific, exactly what is needed and designed for a certain type of person. In this case the UI is for me and one other. The UI is contained within a folder of JPG images and can be switched by anyone that chooses to modify the design. I may add a theme-switcher later, it has already been partially implemented but completing that is down to my whim entirely.

The theme sported there above is to fit in with my notion of MBOS, "Mein befehl OS", an imaginary o/s created for the Third Reich, Hitler specifically (!) but with Eng. lang buttons and it fits with other creations of mine. I may post a desktop of them all in action later when or if I make any progress on the rest of them. Thanks for the friendly advice though!

If I was making a program that was intended to have mass-market appeal it would have to be a tablet-type WPF interface and that is the exact opposite of what I am trying to achieve. I think I achieved it well.

P.S. The fonts on the basic VB6 controls are user-selectable, that one is Linux Biolinium, all my VB6 and VB.NET tools allow user selection of the font so it is just an example of customisation.

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/15.png

Edit: Added Font Preferences Window showing basic font customisation.

I followed user requirements EXACTLY.
https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/11.png

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

VMS Systems Administrator

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I used to install VAXs and program them in ASM, worked with a team that created maps 20+ years before G. did to run on VMS.

When was the last time you were Admining a VAX ?

Still do it. There are hundreds if not thousands of them controlling everything important. My job is to virtualise the old Vaxes still used - and Alphas too running VMS or Tru64 Unix, some of them at Ordnance Survey.

Cool

I loved my time with PDP's and VAX's.

I remember when Digital created the DecTalk machine - back in maybe 1985. They gave the company I worked for five of these things and I took one and created an app that would allow a student to call the high school info line and walk through a series of "push 1 to hear this", "push 2 to here that". All of the "text" and "keypad" mapping and control was stored in a simple .TXT file that the app loaded when it started up.

We gave one to a client in PA - Neshaminy High School in Langhorne.

Text to speech - early days, lol!

That sounds quite right, all that long time ago, like

This is the only VAX that I can still log into! There is a physical MicroVax mothballed in a closet next to my office - not sure we could even start that up. I do have a VT220 terminal in my basement at home - that hasn't been powered up in 25 years!

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Originally Posted by szlamany

This is the only VAX that I can still log into! There is a physical MicroVax mothballed in a closet next to my office - not sure we could even start that up. I do have a VT220 terminal in my basement at home - that hasn't been powered up in 25 years!

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If you haven't used it in 25 years, maybe you could 'courier' it to me and I could re-test my code :)

You know that a VAX is running in real time in the nose cones of 'cruisers' ???

That is why they are worth > $Mil

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

Still do it. There are hundreds if not thousands of them controlling everything important. My job is to virtualise the old Vaxes still used - and Alphas too running VMS or Tru64 Unix, some of them at Ordnance Survey.

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Sorry I missed this !!!

How do you virtualise a VAX, hopefully not on Windoze servers ???

Notice windoze still does not have file versioning

Have they fixed the bug that allow you to crash the login script by entering a 'special' username at login ?

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Originally Posted by jg.sa

How do you virtualise a VAX, hopefully not on Windoze servers ???

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That screen shot I put up is on a virtualised server - not sure if it's Windows or Linux - I just emailed the IT Director to ask...

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Notice windoze still does not have file versioning

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Isn't that just amazing - Windows still based solely on DOS, lol!

$ EOJ

There are several ways to virtualise a Vax. The way we did it was to build the actual motherboards and other boards using software that allows you to build and emulate real circuits. You apply a 'real' voltage and the board does its stuff. A vast majority of semiconductors and logic circuits have already been created in this way so all of these cansimply be dropped onto a design. Then you need to build a real backplane and all the other elements of a 'real' Vax. When you have successfully built a Vax CPU (that's the tricky bit) then you can drop it onto a motherboard with all the other discrete components, connect them on the virtual backplane and the thing will just work. You can control the clock speed and other elements within the emulator. In this way VMS thinks it is really running on real hardware (as it is made of individual emulated devices, resistors, capacitors, logic chips) and new and specific boards can be built to run with the emulator as plugins.

Of course it runs on Windows as that is the industry standard for all corporate servers.
The reason for Windows is that one emulator instance can run on a typical 'blade' server and slot into a pre-existing rack and save the company 100s of thousands of £/$ in server room space alone taking up 1/50th (or even less) of the space of something like a typical Vax 6400. Windows fits into corporate enterprise strategies, so it is a no-brainer for managers to save potentially millions.

For each Vax/multi-core Alpha, it is one-to-one CPU relationship with one additional blade CPU dedicated to the emulator and another for Windows itself, two is best. Each drive is emulated as a container file and a SCSI card for the PC allows you to connect TK50s/TK70s or similar to exchange data. We had a stock of TKs.

Back to VB6! Good deviation though.

PS. Real/emulated Vax/Alphas run nuclear power stations, oil refineries, rail trackside systems, traffic lights, aeroplane design systems, Airbus is just one example. All important, all vital, none of it trusted on Windows but if it is a 'real' Vax that can be rebuilt in a matter of minutes/hours on a PC then the Vax on Windows tradeoff can be acceptable. There are security/performance risks however which are not apparent to a typical PC support engineer (ie. children).

But then is Windows still a DOS platform or then just some what of a more independant type of

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Originally Posted by jg.sa

Notice windoze still does not have file versioning

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I have implemented some simple similar file versioning for my tool to emulate VMS file versioning. When the tool runs, prior to any modifications to the shared output file it takes a copy of the file and appends a version number to the suffix, so:

readThis.txt

after each edit becomes

readThis.txt.1
readThis.txt.2
readThis.txt.3

So you can revert to any of the previous versions up to a limit of 32,768 after which it overwrites version 1 and starts again. Sounds just like VMS? Yup.

All my tools that modify a settings file have the same code saving versions in the same manner. As long as the sort of changes you experience are periodic then you have little chance of reaching and over topping that limit. Why a limit of 32768? Well - VMS.

Time for a picture of my latest changes to my fire call chat program, the changes are minor, a revised ping button, removed the refresh button and added a real-time working clock for effect. Just testing and trialling. As in all in-progress designs the end result is not known.

https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2021/06/5.jpg

It is good to have a side-project to deviate onto as I am starting to feel ready to re-embark back upon my dock program, was feeling a little jaded but now I am refreshed. Side-projects are important I say.

sure does, my dear programmer friends

The most recent thing I have did in VB6 was I updated my transaction server to be able to handle transactions from an Android app I recently wrote. Other than that I find myself doing very little in VB6 lately, mostly using B4A and C# for most projects lately.

[ s n i p ]

Visual Basic for me, has become a liestyle thing for the main part of my programming professional career, then

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

PS. Real/emulated Vax/Alphas run nuclear power stations, oil refineries, rail trackside systems, traffic lights, aeroplane design systems, Airbus is just one example.

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G'Day

Thanks for the heads up and sharing :)

I wish I had had the chance to be involved in a project like this, sounds just amazing !!!

I'm very jealous.

I have read about a HP system that allows you to "vmotion" a VAX, but yours seem much more granular so for a control freak like me more elegant.

I notice you don't talk about LAN - DECnetting or LAT devices, did you V any comms. VAXs ?

I have worked for DoD .au and .nz depts. so I understand "Need to know' so understand u cant say much on a open chan !!!

Yeah so to speak like so

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Originally Posted by jg.sa

G'Day DM

Is your TS time tested ?

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Yes, very much so. I originally wrote it about 20 years ago, hashed out any issues right away and has been running stable at many locations for many years now and has been ran on pretty much every OS from Windows 2000 - Windows 10 as well as the various server versions along the way.

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Do you have a connection protocol ( eg. the client has to solve a maths problem and send to the server before it is allowed to connect and start to authenticate ) ?

TIA

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Yes, of sorts anyway, both on the connection and the transactions. The original intent of the software was to allow Windows CE based mobile devices to send/receive data either in single transaction format wirelessly or batch format either wirelessly or through a network or USB connection. Client programs over the years have been written in VB5, eVB, VB2003, VB2005 and VB2008.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

I have implemented some simple similar file versioning for my tool to emulate VMS file versioning.

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This is embarrassing for M$, how easy is it to have a FVS

Just reaffirms that M$ is a marketing company not a systems company.

Your app. looks g8 and I'm someone who can't design a UI to save himself.

I have excelled at my unit i did of screen design, in multimedia and it looks quite good, in deed

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Originally Posted by jg.sa

I notice you don't talk about LAN - DECnetting or LAT devices, did you V any comms. VAXs ?

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re: LAT, generally terminals are more or less gone, I haven't come across a VT220 on anyone's desk except the operator's console for years now. Strangely enough, when we do virtualise a Vax the one thing that is often retained is the Operator's console in the form of VT220/420. As you know a Vax does not like having the console disconnected.

DECnet is achieved by emulating a typical ethernet board and simply passing the output through a PC LAN port, Dell servers can be spec'd to have multiple ethernet ports, typically we use one for the PC comms (best to disconnect this entirely) whilst the other is for DECnet.

When a Vax/Alpha is retained it is normally due to its function being too expensive to replace (100s of millions), the hardware requires a VMS system or the VMS system cannot be changed as that would require recertification of the plane/train/nuclear power plant. The "need to know" that you mentioned is quite a real issue so no names here other than the one I already mentioned. I can name others without worrying but no real need. Typical use would be cross compilation of Ada programs for embedded systems in avionics that needs to be run on a 'real' vax otherwise re-certification required. As the hardware is built using virtual components, the virtual Vax and the o/s 'thinks' it is real and therefore byte for byte the compiled output is identical.

I still have one of the DCL programs I wrote for controlling the flow of chocolate at Mars, it was named "Countdown", written in DCL, transpiled into BASIC or Fortran, I forget which, it controlled the chocolate output of 20 chocolate production lines.

The others are all on TK50 and I ought to get them off while I still can.

My DCL programming was highly BASIC in its style. Functional, not event nor object driven but for a while it did control a major factory making product for the world.

Here's what I've been working on - Dungeon of the Winds - which is basically a 2D game engine written using subclassed owner-drawn picture boxes based on code found on this forum.

I run VB6 in Windows 10 on a MacBook Pro with CodeSMART. No OCX controls or anything, just pure VB code.

The images are custom embedded resources, so the game will be a self contained editor and game engine in one EXE. Only the map files are external so that they can be edited by players and shared with others.

Here is the game running in editor mode, editing a map:

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Originally Posted by Blueapples

Here's what I've been working on - Dungeon of the Winds - which is basically a 2D game engine written using subclassed owner-drawn picture boxes based on code found on this forum.

I run VB6 in Windows 10 on a MacBook Pro with CodeSMART. No OCX controls or anything, just pure VB code.

The images are custom embedded resources, so the game will be a self contained editor and game engine in one EXE. Only the map files are external so that they can be edited by players and shared with others.

Here is the game running in editor mode, editing a map:

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A nice strategy game, hey dude

I made a 2D Pythagoras Tree Fractal Program a while ago. I am now experimenting with the SUPER ELLIPSE FORMULA for another graphics program. The SUPER FORMULA does all sorts of great curves based on an ellipse equation ( I added onto some existing code to store the design settings). Would love to improve the quality of the graphics to SVG type sharpness. I know a utility called Potrace does that from BMP's but VB6 is what I use to make my graphics programs.

Attachment 181746

Wow man, that is totally rad man

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Originally Posted by Blueapples

Here's what I've been working on - Dungeon of the Winds -

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That is another fascinating use of VB6, I'd like to see more of that, feel free to post images as you make progress. We like to see the working environment (the real desktop) and select, high quality images as you turn the milestones.

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Originally Posted by CreativeDreamer

I made a 2D Pythagoras Tree Fractal Program a while ago. I am now experimenting with the SUPER ELLIPSE FORMULA for another graphics program.

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Impressive, is it quick to create those fractals? Are those native controls or Kontrols by Krool? Feel free to send some photos of your new program too.

Thanks for the kind words. :)

Right now it is a basic action game but the editor *does* look like a strategy game, you've inspired me, I hadn't even realized I had done a lot of the work for a strategy game!

Here's my most recent work environment, while on vacation I am not in my office.

Every picture tells a story, you have a cat, you are happy to work on a modernish laptop, you have a trackball mouse and an ever so slightly messy desk area. Often the picture completes the image, we all work on VB6 for some reason and the resulting software is only part of that story.

Your game reminded me of 0AD.