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What's next?

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 2:16 am
by DGDanforth
Are we done or do you have a wish list for BlackBox Component Pascal?

Re: What's next?

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 7:09 am
by Zinn
Picture support in RTF (Rich text format) by copy, paste, open and save. It is a replacement for part of Casket, which is not available anymore.
- Helmut

Re: What's next?

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:23 pm
by Josef Templ
I would like to have a disassembler for the i386 code generated by the BlackBox compiler.
Work on the compiler is harder than necessary if you don't see what the compiler generates.

Naturally, this would be an extension of DevBrowser.ShowCodeFile, which currently only shows the header
of a code file but not its full content.

Such a disassembler is quite simple, in principle. Basically a loop over an opcode decoder
and a couple of CASE statements that translate the opcode to the mnemonics together with the operands.
All we need is a specification of the overall object file format but this can be reverse engineered from the compiler
unless it is available somewhere.

- Josef

Re: What's next?

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 7:48 pm
by DGDanforth
Zinn wrote:Picture support in RTF (Rich text format) by copy, paste, open and save. It is a replacement for part of Casket, which is not available anymore.
- Helmut
It is my understanding from Robert that Casket RTF can still be used since that part of Casket is not under license.
I am using Casket RTF.
-Doug

Re: What's next?

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 7:51 pm
by DGDanforth
Josef Templ wrote:I would like to have a disassembler for the i386 code generated by the BlackBox compiler.
Work on the compiler is harder than necessary if you don't see what the compiler generates.

Naturally, this would be an extension of DevBrowser.ShowCodeFile, which currently only shows the header
of a code file but not its full content.

Such a disassembler is quite simple, in principle. Basically a loop over an opcode decoder
and a couple of CASE statements that translate the opcode to the mnemonics together with the operands.
All we need is a specification of the overall object file format but this can be reverse engineered from the compiler
unless it is available somewhere.

- Josef
Would that also make it easier to support non INTEL processors?

Re: What's next?

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 4:25 am
by Ivan Denisov
Long wish list:
- package manager and online store
- 64 bit version
- portability Linux/BSD/Mac/Android

I am working for each part a bit. For the online store, take a look on the new publication example. Maybe you will find useful this Cairo port of HostPorts.
http://apps.blackboxframework.org/component/Cairo

Re: What's next?

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:16 am
by DGDanforth
Ivan Denisov wrote:Long wish list:
- package manager and online store
- 64 bit version
- portability Linux/BSD/Mac/Android

I am working for each part a bit. For the online store, take a look on the new publication example. Maybe you will find useful this Cairo port of HostPorts.
http://apps.blackboxframework.org/component/Cairo
When compiling Cairo I get an error for

Code: Select all

res := WinApi.ExtTextOutA(dc, x, y, 0, NIL, s1, n, dx[0])
saying
actual parameter corresponding to open array is not an array
marked at
dx[0]

Re: What's next?

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 4:17 pm
by Ivan Denisov
Doug, the links does not work for you and now this. It seems that you using some old version of BlackBox.

Re: What's next?

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 2:09 am
by DGDanforth
Ivan Denisov wrote:Doug, the links does not work for you and now this. It seems that you using some old version of BlackBox.
I'm using Master64 but I will revert back to the latest unstable version.

Re: What's next?

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:17 am
by DGDanforth
Ivan,
I am VERY unhappy.
I reverted back to build 719 which was fine.
I then compile Cairo successfully, no errors.
I then did the HostPorts change as suggested and rebooted BB.

I could not open BB because it said there was a missing dll.

I deleted all BB 1.7 files and reinstalled from the zip719.

Same problem. Missing cairo dll. How can that possibly be?

I then removed the /USE option in my shortcut and that allowed
me to start BB. Thank God!

I conclude that something has been put into my /USE directory by Cairo
that causes BB on startup to attempt to look for the Cairo dlls. How can that be?
I am stumped! I am also dead in the water without being able to access my menus.

Not happy at all! Thanks Cairo. You have been deleted.
===
In addition I can't compile my files. It says "disk full?"
So something very bad has been done to my BB environment by Cairo.

-Doug