Two Questions - Fletchie's control pack and My code

[Andy]

Been meaning to ask these two questions for some time - so here goes...

A lot has been posted about Fletchie's control pack - so here are my questions about it:

Who is / was Fletchie?
What does his control pack enable you to do?
Does it work with IWB?
and can it be downloaded - if so, does anyone have a link?
(Egil was also asking about this control pack download).

About my code:
I've posted a few things now, especially in user offerings, when compiled by anyone, can you tell me if you get your anti virus complaining about the .exe file just created?

I recently upgraded the laptop to win 10, the first thing I did was to install Avast A/V, then IWB.

I copied two IWB files and made my first compiles in win 10 - straight away Avast blocked them (wrongly stating that they were a virus).

I run clean machines (and always have), anyone else have problems with mine (or your) compiles and A/V's?

I know It's the A/V software - I just wonder is it only me that has the problem sometimes?

Thanks,
Andy.

[Bill-Bo]

Andy,

I downloaded the pak back in 2012. I save webpages on everything, but I can't find the one for this. The file includes a Where the files go.txt. Read this. And yes, it's for IWBasic. Look at the ctl.ihp file. It has description of some of the commands.

I have attached the pak. If I find the webpage, I will attach it.

BTW I have not used it. And, I don't use Avast any more.

Bill

[LarryMc]

Been meaning to ask these two questions for some time - so here goes...

A lot has been posted about Fletchie's control pack - so here are my questions about it:

Who is / was Fletchie?
What does his control pack enable you to do?
Does it work with IWB?
and can it be downloaded - if so, does anyone have a link?
(Egil was also asking about this control pack download).

Graham touched on the early days of IWBasic in another post and let me repeat/expand upon that.

There once was a programming web site called Pyxia which featured an interpreted Basic language called IBasic.
IBasic had quite  a following which included, among others, Graham and a fellow named Fletchie.

The author of IBasic, much to Graham's chagrin, decided to create a compiled Basic language called IBasic Professional (IBasic Pro).
While IBasic allowed you to create components to add additional functionality to programs, IBasic Pro allow you to create static libraries and DLLs.
IBasic Pro also introduced the concept of Command Paks which allows a person to create a lib file, a help file, and an .incc file and have a set of subroutines act just like native IBasic Pro commands.

Fletchie's major lasting contribution is a static library of some very useful functions.  With it is a very useful Helpfile viewer  he wrote
It was written for IBasic Pro.

It appears that one day(before I joined  the Pyxia forum and purchased IBasic Pro) Fletchie simply disappeared much like Sapero.
He's never been heard from since.

The author of IBasic and IBasic Pro sold the languages and Pyxia website. After a few months the site went down and the new owner never restarted it. Those two languages died a natural death.

Meanwhile, the original author appears with a new website IonicWind with a new OOP based language Aurora.  When things don't go as well as the author would he offers Emergence Basic (EBasic). EBasic, for all practical purposes, is IBasic Pro and all programs created for IB Pro will compile and run in EBasic.  At another point in time Creative Basic (CBasic) is offered.  CBasic, for all practical purposes, is IBasic and all programs created for IBasic will and run in CBasic.

Through multiple sales involving multiple parties LarryS wound up with IonicWind, Aurora, Creative Basic, and Emergence Basic. Due to multiple reasons the name of EBasic was changed to IWBasic.

This is the link  to Fletchie's CTL.lib over on my website
http://www.codingmonkeys.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item108

and this is the link to the discussion on how to get the helpviewer to work
http://www.ionicwind.com/forums/index.php?topic=5826.0

and attached is the ctl.inc file so you can see all the functions that are in the lib

[Egil]

The file ctl.ihp opens in both NotePad and WordPad here, and contains descripton for a lot of commands.

Since it is easy to read the function descriptions, couldn't we just copy the ctl.lib and ctl.inc to the corresponding directories in IWB, and use it the same way we do with other such files? E.g. "INCLUDE ctl.inc" on top of the IWB source file that are going to use Fletchie's library?

[GWS]

Ooh! .. that takes me back Larry .. 

I forgot to mention, my other persistent request was for the developer to write a compiler component for Creative.  The user would then work on his programs in interpreted mode (which is very a nice click-it-and-see environment), and when it was working, run it through a compiler back end, to generate a fast exe file.

Again, it never happened .. 

There was one time some of us met at an ill-fated attempt to link with a commercial company in the UK ..
piccy below thanks to Brian .. 

(from the left) Me, Paul Turley (author of the original Pyxia basic), Brian, Ian Fletcher (Fletchie, deceased, we think), and two others I don't know the name of .. taken in about 2006.

Ah! .. the years pass by so quickly.

Regards,

Graham

[LarryMc]

The file ctl.ihp opens in both NotePad and WordPad here, and contains descripton for a lot of commands.

Since it is easy to read the function descriptions, couldn't we just copy the ctl.lib and ctl.inc to the corresponding directories in IWB, and use it the same way we do with other such files? E.g. "INCLUDE ctl.inc" on top of the IWB source file that are going to use Fletchie's library?

that's exactly the way you use it in your programs
if you set up his view you'll have a nice treeview on the left of the function categories and names with the formatted descriptions on the right laid out sort of like the IWB help file

[Egil]

Ok Larry, I just got a little confused when I read the content of the link you supplied.
If some of you "old" guys using it could make a screendump of the Helpwiever in action, I volunteer to produce a template and convert the text into a new CHM file. If Fletchie's library is only half as useful as I have  got an impression of, it will be well worth the effort.

[Brian]

Graham,

The fifth guy in the picture is another programmer, who was working as a third-party programmer,
and the sixth was an employee of the company. Just as the project was about to get going, he broke
his leg badly, and it all fell apart (the project, not his leg!). The company (can't remember the name)
promoted someone from within the company, but he made a mess of it, and the project died

Brian

[GWS]

Brian,

It was a good day - lots of cream cakes 

The company, Idigicon, was a let down - the only good thing they produced was a spiral bound user guide for IBasic - still got a copy of it around here somewhere .. 

best wishes,

Graham

[LarryMc]

Ok Larry, I just got a little confused when I read the content of the link you supplied.
If some of you "old" guys using it could make a screendump of the Helpwiever in action, I volunteer to produce a template and convert the text into a new CHM file. If Fletchie's library is only half as useful as I have  got an impression of, it will be well worth the effort.

Nothing complicated about it
It could have been a simple chm file from the start
Fletchie's idea was to make it more of a dynamic viewer that could be continually added to by anyone

[GWS]

Hi,

Forgot to answer Andy's second question about false positives of AV software.

I've been using two products recently, Norton and McAfee.

I stopped using Norton while I was using Win7, because it kept deleting newly compiled exe files from both Creative and EBasic.  They had introduced an additional virus detection process they call Sonar - and this was coming up with dire warnings and just deleting everything I compiled.  Most annoying.

I complained to Norton who asked for screen dumps and files, which I submitted to their 'automated' analysis system. After weeks of waiting, they sent me the results, which not surprisingly said there was nothing wrong with the files.  I already knew that, but their Sonar still kept deleting exe's. 

So I purchased McAfee and had no further trouble.

Then I went back to using XP, which unfortunately McAfee no longer supports.  So I returned to using Norton, which went back to it's frustrating ways of deleting my exe's - fortunately they have an option to turn off Sonar, which I've done.

It also quarantined a commercial program I purchased recently as soon as I tried to run it's setup.exe.

Fortunately I was able to restore it - and that's when I switched off Sonar in disgust - although Norton's software complains about that.

So at the moment Norton AV is more hindrance than a help.  I think I'll try some other AV software if I can find a good one to use with XP.

Best wishes,

Graham

[Andy]

Thanks everybody!

I will get back to the other points a little later - however this is what I have noticed...

1. The ctl.inc and .lib file are already incuded in IWB3 (didn't realise that).

2. Cannot open properly the IBasicView.exe.
It opens, but does not show the categories on the left hand side.

Anyone got a viewer I can download?

I'm using Win7 (32 bit).

Thanks,
Andy.

[Egil]

I stopped using Norton while I was using Win7, because it kept deleting newly compiled exe files from both Creative and EBasic.  They had introduced an additional virus detection process they call Sonar - and this was coming up with dire warnings and just deleting everything I compiled.  Most annoying.

I complained to Norton who asked for screen dumps and files, which I submitted to their 'automated' analysis system. After weeks of waiting, they sent me the results, which not surprisingly said there was nothing wrong with the files.  I already knew that, but their Sonar still kept deleting exe's.

I experienced the same with F-Secure. But they never bothered to answer my complaints.
So I changed to MS Internet Security on my tabletop, and after that I have had no problems. And it was free. The first year after that I had McAfee running on my laptop to see if there was any difference, but the few times there was any issues, they reported the same on both computers.
Also tried for a while with Avast, but after the first week, all installed IW software was useless. Avira just modified the files,and even deleted some, whithout giving me any warning. But there was a logfile I could check to see what was blocked or deleted..... 

[Egil]

Thanks for the screendump Larry.
I'll start converting it today. As long as I have to use these painkillers, my coding is a mess. But I need to have something to do, so hope this copy and paint job will help me kill some time.

Fletchie's idea was to make it more of a dynamic viewer that could be continually added to by anyone

That idea is very good. It is so good that someone has copied it: http://www.horstmuc.de/wmem.htm.
I have used this Mempad software for years. Pity it is coded with PureBasic instead of more sivilized tools, you all know what I mean...

[LarryMc]

Thanks everybody!

I will get back to the other points a little later - however this is what I have noticed...

1. The ctl.inc and .lib file are already incuded in IWB3 (didn't realise that).

2. Cannot open properly the IBasicView.exe.
It opens, but does not show the categories on the left hand side.

Anyone got a viewer I can download?

I'm using Win7 (32 bit).

Thanks,
Andy.

I assume you mean the IBHelpView.exeDid you follow the instructions in the following thread?
http://www.ionicwind.com/forums/index.php?topic=5826.msg43046#msg43046

[LarryMc]

Thanks for the screendump Larry.
I'll start converting it today. As long as I have to use these painkillers, my coding is a mess. But I need to have something to do, so hope this copy and paint job will help me kill some time.

I'm waiting for you to get back to coding on your aircraft positioning program that we played with for a while

[Egil]

I'm waiting for you to get back to coding on your aircraft positioning program that we played with for a while

So am I Larry...

The map section of the program is just the top of the iceberg. Lately I have done some work on the data collecting part of it. Since the transmissions contain all sorts of traffic, I have made filtering routines, to assure that only ID and position data are retrieved. But unfortunately the medication I'm on makes me very drowsy, and the coding progress is so slow that my almost non-existent patience gets a hard beating.
Hopefully I'll be back to normal in not too long.

[LarryMc]

I know the feeling about those meds messing with you.
You are at their mercy.
I just glad you are still with us.

[GWS]

Ditto  from me.

My younger brother is in the same position 

Three score years and 10, and things start to go wrong.

Life's later years are very difficult.

Best wishes,

Graham

[Bill-Bo]

Andy,

You have not commented about my attachment.

Bill

[Andy]

Bill,

Sorry I've been out all day, yes I've downloaded the attachment thanks, I'm just in the process of looking at it.

Thanks very much!!

Larry, thanks, got the help file working now.

Graham, I like the picture you posted, must bring back some memories, I had a few good ones at work, but no one ever took pictures, so they only exist now in my head.

I am in the middle of converting Fletchies help program into a chm file, which I hope to post to you all tomorrow, hope it helps until Egil can perhaps make something better.


Andy.

[Andy]

Here is my converted help file for Fletchie's control pak.

It's a chm file, so you should just be able to double click it to open - took some converting!

Thanks,
Andy.

[Egil]

Great work Andy! 

I planned to do the same conversion, but started in another end. Converting IB Pro Code Archive example files for the control pack to IWB. Just finished when the email notification of your posting was received.
My intention was to include the examples in the CHM file, but now posting them here instead.

[Andy]

Thanks Egil!

Didn't mean to steal your idea, I will have a look at the examples you have posted as soon as I can, and hopefully add them to the help file.

Think it might get Friday before I have time to do that.

I'm sure that's great work you've done, and even more, that fact you've done the conversion means you must be feeling a little better, which is great news! 

[Egil]

I have known about the livrary for several years. A pity that I haven't studied it before, as it could have saved me a lot of work.
I do not know who made these examples, but I found them in the IBasic Pro Code Arhvie downloaded from http://www.codingmonkeys.com/.