twinBASIC programming - Beta releases

[VB6 Programming]

BETA 623 is out. Please note the warnings at the top of the release notes

BETA 623 is (finally) out. Please note the warnings at the top of the release notes:
IMPORTANT: This is an interim/experimental release. It includes significant changes, so some instability is to be expected.
KNOWN ISSUE: UserControls from the ACTIVE project will not appear correctly in the form designer in this release (they are purposely disabled until next release). Packaged controls, such as VBCCR will work.
KNOWN ISSUE: Menus currently not appearing in MDI Forms (broken in this build)
KNOWN ISSUE: 'Scale*' properties are often not settable in the IDE property sheet (broken in this build)
KNOWN ISSUE: Setting Width/Height via the property sheet often does not work correctly (broken in this build)
KNOWN ISSUE: Controls are not being destroyed properly by the form designer, causing big memory leaks (broken in this build)

(and there will be more regressions for sure)

https://github.com/twinbasic/twinbas...ag/beta-x-0623



Changelog

• Wishing everyone a joyful holiday season! Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting this out.
• IMPORTANT: This is an interim/experimental release. It includes significant changes, so some instability is to be expected.
• KNOWN ISSUE: UserControls from the ACTIVE project will not appear correctly in the form designer in this release (they are purposely disabled until next release). Packaged controls, such as VBCCR will work.
• KNOWN ISSUE: Menus currently not appearing in MDI Forms (broken in this build)
• KNOWN ISSUE: 'Scale*' properties are often not settable in the IDE property sheet (broken in this build)
• KNOWN ISSUE: Setting Width/Height via the property sheet often does not work correctly (broken in this build)
• KNOWN ISSUE: Controls are not being destroyed properly by the form designer, causing big memory leaks (broken in this build)
• TIP: To download the release, expand the 'Assets' link below and download the 'twinBASIC_IDE_BETA_XYZ.zip' file
• WARNING: there are known memory leaks in this version, so memory usage will be higher than normal
• fixed: IDE evaluating custom class enumerator (NewEnum) for Locals/Watches panel during debugging could cause recursion problems
• improved: many form/UserControl/ActiveX behaviours reworked to better match VBx
• fixed: accessing array element of fixed-length array inside a UDT with bounds-checks OFF would ignore the lower bound index [ https://github.com//issues/1920 ]
• added: project setting 'Codegen Model' for refining the generated code (size vs speed)
• improved: codegen output size reduced (in all models) from previous builds ('Smaller' model ~20%, 'Balanced' ~10%, 'Faster' ~5%)
• fixed: not all ByVal params should be copied in the implicit function prolog [ fafalone, discord ]
• fixed: (regression) LLVM compilation not working on Sub routines
• added: project setting 'Include Runtime PNG Support' (default YES), set to NO to reduce final built executable size
• added: project setting 'Project: Strip PE File Relocation Symbols' (default YES for EXEs, NO for DLLs)
• added: project setting 'Project: Enable Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR)' (default YES)
• added: project setting 'Project: PE File Image Base Address', allowing to override the EXE/DLL image base address
• fixed: 'Trace procedure entry and exit points' project setting could cause floating point return values of standard module procedures to be set to zero on Win64 target
• fixed: DIAGNOSTICS panel now hides the file (group) nodes when all of its children are hidden
• improved: added IDE option 'Check referenced packages are up-to-date' default YES [ Krool, discord ]
• improved: the IDE will now remember the Win32/Win64 target architecture for a project and restore the last used architecture when loading the project
• fixed: some issues in importing some VBP projects, causing 'circular reference' compilation errors after import
• added: error TB5246 'Bad JSON Syntax' for when a designer underlying JSON is not parsable (e.g. corruption or bad import)
• added: error TB5247 'Unable to find matching form designer JSON' for when a class form designer is missing or wasn't parsed (rather than generic 'circular reference' error)
• added: 'View as Markdown Preview' context menu option for .MD files in the IDE
• improved: (VBP import) IMPORT_LOG is now a markdown file with better formatting
• fixed: 'block not closed' compilation errors could sometimes prevent auto-correction of other lines, such as 'EndIf' -> 'End If' [ wqweto, discord ]
• fixed: 'Ctl' suffix is now added appropriately to AX Control type library symbol names when LIBFLAG_FCONTROL is not set and 'Use ActiveX Controls' flag is set in project references
• fixed: delegate defined as 'Sub' would cause a crash if you try to use the (void) value as part of an expression [ loquat, discord ]
• fixed: if the icon of a built executable has changed, Windows should now update the icon cache immediately
• added: project setting for 'Icon Form' to match VBx support for specifying the form icon to use as the EXE build icon
• fixed: passing a LongPtr value to a function delegate parameter would cause a compilation error rather than a warning [ fafalone, discord ]
• improved: runtime controls now use 'ThunderRT6' class prefix rather than 'Thunder' (e.g. ThunderRT6CommandButton) to match VBx
• improved: now using a common base WNDPROC for all controls to match VBx
• improved: position of IDE color picker when near the bottom edge of the IDE window [ sokinkeso, discord ]
• improved: IDE form designer mini-toolbar now available for AX controls to allow opening of property sheets
• fixed: (regression) clicking anywhere in the monaco editor whilst using the 'View As JSON' feature caused an IDE Internal Error
• fixed: String to numeric type conversions could sometimes ignore regional settings, not matching VBx behaviour [ kimpos, email ]
• improved: form-designer has been reworked to use live backed form designers, rather than isolated control rendering [ fixes lots of AX controls like SSTab ]
• fixed: Controls.Add now works with AX controls
• fixed: DragIcon property sheet ellipses button now opens the Icon file browser, rather than generic picture file browser
• improved: single-click inside a selected CheckBox/CheckMark/OptionButton in the form designer will now toggle the Value of the control
• improved: VisualStyles control properties are now updatable at runtime
• fixed: changing PictureBox.Appearance property at runtime would have no effect
• fixed: setting property ProgressBar.Step would be ineffective (Native Common Controls)
• fixed: some general issues with Label.AutoSize behaviours not perfectly matching VBx
• fixed: Form.MinButton / MaxButton property ignored when Form.BorderStyle is vbFixedSingle [ VanGoghGaming, discord ]
• added: [Debuggable(False)] attribute, defaults to True, allowing to turn off breakpoints/stepping support for a procedure or all procedures in a module/class
• added: project setting 'Project: Debuggable', defaults to YES, allowing to turn off breakpoints/stepping for the whole project/package
• improved: built-in packages now have the Debuggable setting set to NO to allow for easier step debugging in user projects
• improved: some ActiveX control initialization errors are more gracefully handled by the form designer
• fixed: issue with UDT return types being exposed in generated type-libraries [ VanGoghGaming, discord ]
• fixed: issue with UDT containing other sub UDT members being exposed in generated type-libraries [ VanGoghGaming, discord ]
• fixed: loading of form wit MDIClient property set to True could cause hard crash if there is no MDI Form in the project, rather than a trappable error
• fixed: Err.Raise 0 should produce an invalid procedure call error, rather than a 'success' error message
• fixed: changing breakpoints would not cause the project to be marked as dirty, so a further document edit was required to persist them [ Aaraya, vbforums ]
• fixed: 'Use ActiveX Controls' property on COM references is now completely overriden (to FALSE) for MSAccess references which wrongly has FCONTROL flags set
• improved: Sample 4 so that refering to CommandBars("Add-ins") menu now works regardless of user locale
• added: [_HiddenModule].GetDeclaredTypeProgId(Of T) generic function for obtaining the stringified progID of a type
• improved: Sample 4 and 5 to use GetDeclaredTypeProgId instead of a hardcoded string
• fixed: IsMissing() returning False incorrectly when passed an empty ParamArray [ VanGoghGaming, discord ]
• improved: added IDE setting 'Code Editor Font: Use Ligatures' (default FALSE) needed for some fonts [ Flowesans, discord ]
• fixed: setting Timer.Interval to a negative value did not produce an error [ Krool, discord ]
• fixed: linker bug causing 'Unable to load DLL' errors at DLL callsites on Win7/8 machines... sometimes [ HackerVlad, vbforums ]
• fixed: some edge cases around ByRef Variant handling with regards to pass-thru arrays [ https://github.com//issues/1961 ]
• fixed: hovering over a single-character operator in the code editor whilst in a debug session would throw an IDE error
• fixed: some cases where code semantic highlighting doesnt work whilst in a debug session
• fixed: hovering over symbols in the IDE whilst in a debug session could lead to "WARNING: execution delayed; ..." message in the DEBUG CONSOLE, followed by a freeze requiring compiler restart
• fixed: TypeName() on a UserControl would return "ActiveXControlExtender", not the underlying unwrapped control type name
• fixed: UserControl.ParentControls is now implemented (inc support for vbExtender/vbNoExtender)
• fixed: rewrote IVBGetControl implementation to better match VBx and fix several issues
• improved: IPerPropertyBrowsing based properties are now populated live on-demand when a field combobox is dropped in the IDE property sheet
• fixed: setting MousePointer property at runtime could cause mouse pointer to be updated even when the mouse is in non-client window areas
• fixed: Err.Raise without setting an explicit description would sometimes not set the correct implicit description
• fixed: 'Memory is locked' error when using For-Each on a temporary array e.g. from Array() call [ https://github.com//issues/1936 ]
• fixed: support for HRESULTs used as ordinary datatype from typelibraries [ https://github.com//issues/1937 ]
• fixed: some edge cases around FPU handling of errors [ https://github.com//issues/1932 ]
• improved: warning TB0015 (DLL redirection) has been downgraded to a HINT level diagnostic by default
• fixed: (regression since BETA 593) 'Element not found' error when creating tB AX user control from hosts such as VBA UserForms
• changed: DPI-awareness setting is now OFF by default when importing VBPs
• improved: selecting multiple controls in the form designer was slow to respond
• added: [_HiddenModule].GetDeclaredTypeClsid(Of T) generic function for obtaining the stringified CLSID of a COM type

How to install https://nolongerset.com/how-to-install-twinbasic/

If you have difficulties finding the download try here https://github.com/twinbasic/twinbasic/tags