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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Improved Editor?
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| fred777 Regular Member  Joined: 01/07/2021 Location: United KingdomPosts: 61 |
Hi all, Recently, I've thinking back to the "good old days" when I was using some of the more advanced Basic dialects available on MSDOS. I fondly remember the IDEs of QuickBasic and MS-PDS7, but especially that of Powerbasic. Wouldn't it be great to have a build-in Editor on the Pico that has lots more functionality? Don't get me wrong, I love MMEDIT, but wouldn't it be nice to improve the builtin Editor? Things like auto indent and a Sub/Function List when pressing F2 (was it F2?), context help, auto completion... All in text mode of course. I was thinking about writing an IDE for MMBASIC in MMBasic but I'm unsure about how that IDE could run the basic program... Discuss... Edited 2026-04-17 05:05 by fred777 |
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Mixtel90 Guru  Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8763 |
The beauty of the current editor is that it doesn't matter which MMBasic platform you are using, it's almost the same (there have to be some changes). You can usually just walk in and use it, all the way from a 28-pin MicroMite to a CMM2. Yes, you could probably enhance the editor but you'd break that system as there's no room for anything bigger on the MicroMite - it's full! Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| fred777 Regular Member Joined: 01/07/2021 Location: United KingdomPosts: 61 |
That is a good point, keep the mites as similar as possible. So,if I wanted another editor I'd need to write a Basic IDE myself (that will give me something to do for ages, great) and assign that to a flash slot. Then use OPTION FNKEY to start it from the prompt, then load in a .BAS file to edit. Then save the file and use RUN or CHAIN to run it, maybe using RAM SAVE/RAM RUN if PSRAM is available - might that be faster than saving to flash or sdcard? And the source code from the current program can't be access from another Program runnig from a flash slot i guess. So getting the current active prog into the IDE would need something like SAVE "zzztemp":FLASH RUN 1 as the Function key. Does that sound right? Are the any better options? Edited 2026-04-17 23:26 by fred777 |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5856 |
Hi Fred777, That is exactly how the filemanagers work. There are also filemanagers that can invoke the built in editor. - Load the editor in program memory - FLASH SAVE 2 'store in flash slot 2 - OPTION F9 "FLASH RUN 2"+chr$(13) When pressing F9 you start the (always available) editor. Regards, Volhout P.S. there are forum members that use AI to write MMBasic code. I assume that with perseverance you could get the editor you want (i.e. VI ? ) in MMBasic code. Especially since behaviour of know editors is well documented, and AI can use that without you specifying every single detail. Edited 2026-04-17 23:36 by Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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