Shapes Editor 1.7b - Small Basic Featured Program

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I published Shapes 1.7b (XFZ657-16) yesterday.  This program is a shapes (picture) editor.  I'd like to talk about this new version.

New Features

There are two new points in 1.7b.

  • Added grid feature - [Grid] toggles grid display
  • Changed window size to 598 x 428 pixels

The grid step is 10 pixels.  This will allow users to adjust shapes sizes.  Change about window size is for future support in remote (in a browser with Silverlight on Small Basic program listing server).  598 x 428 is the best size for both in local and in remote. [*1]

Publish Error

Version 1.5b was compact so there was no error when it published.  But 1.7b is too large for publish to the server.  So, I separated [Open] subroutines into an other source GTV460-1.  These subroutines treat local file.  So they don't run in remote anyway.  I had an another choice to upload 1.7b full source to TechNet Gallery.  But for following two reasons, I decided to separate this program and publish them.  One is for running this program in remote.  The other reason is to confirm a bug fix described below.

Minor Bug Fix

1.5b and older version has a minor bug that the position of scissors in menu was wrong.  For long time, I couldn't find this reason of the bug.  But recently, I found a timing issue about shapes image rotation. [*2]  Though the scissors are not image but triangles and ellipses, I tried to insert Program.Delay() just after shapes added before their rotation.  This works well.  So, I will write about this issue as a TechNet Wiki article.

Known Issues

There are still known issues when this program runs in remote. I'd like to fix these issues and make Shapes available in remote.

  • Rotated Triangle and Line become wrong places.
  • Grid sometimes becomes pale color.
  • [Open] is not supported.
  • [Save] creates only main and Shapes_Init subroutine.  Other subroutines are not created.

For the Future

Shapes object is useful to write animation program.  So, I tried to make this Shapes editor.  But if there are many shapes to move, the program will become complex and slow.  So I started to try conversion from Shapes picture to .png file with PowerPoint VBA. [*3]  And I'm very interested in sharing Shapes data with other program languages.

[*1] Small Basic Known Issue: 22108 - Viewport of GraphicsWindow is Narrower and Sometimes Resized in Remote (TechNet Wiki)

[*2] Small Basic Known Issue: 24270 - Shape Image is Not Zoomed from Center in Remote (TechNet Wiki)

[*3] Small Basic: Duck Shoot Images: PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation (TechNet Gallery)

See Also