SpiderBasic

Hi Fred,

my English is very bad, sorry. Some days ago I found at purebasic.de the link to Spider Basic. At my Site http://info-heft.de I set a small discussion about some interesting Themes as Internet, Web, PC an LifeStyle - especially in German Language I will try some Options of your great idea width spiderbasic. Please tell me:
- what is the master plan an the first goal for spiderbasic evolution in the next year?
- wich Programms should be developed (without Plays e.c.)?
- do you want to integrate for example node.js as a serversite language?
- shoud we also develop Websites with spiderbasic?
- what about responsive GUI to use it on alle types of Monitors?

Thank You so much
Hanniball

hi !

- the plan is to reach great stability and robust commands to build desktop-like apps in the browser
- i don't understand the question
- may be in a later upgrade
- no, it's really designed to create complex GUI or small 2D games
- it's a good idea, noted.

Hi Fred ... Curious as to why you don't think Spider Basic should be used to create websites? Is there a disadvantage in doing so? Thanks!

Hi Fred, many Thanks for Your prompt Answers.

Ok, solid and robust Programms like on Desktop is ok, but why should they run in Browser? That's why my question: What Programms should be developed:
(possibilities)
a) Websites with Desktop Outfit ?
b) Apps with communication functions in Web Solutions (e.g. WhatsApp
c) Ok, Plays also, that's ok...
d) Web Sockets and other non http protocol Solutions

I think it must give a main direction to understand why we need spiderbasic as a new language for software-development.
But not the matter, i will try some aspects of my own style and put it on http://info-heft.de in a few days.
Many greetings
Hanniball

Because browser are everywhere (on desktop, mobile, phones), so you can develop on GUI for all, that's the main point here. Another good point is maintenance: you don't have to install or update something, everything is on your server so you are sure your clients are always using the lastest version.

Ok, I understand. So let us see, what future will brings.

I don't know if I'm missing something fundamental here.

Its strange, you say you want spider basic to be a tool to build desktop-like apps in the browser, then you go on to say that browsers are everywhere (desktops, mobiles etc), create one UI for all.

Buy that's not how things work in the world of UI's. In an ideal world, a desktop UI will never be the same as a mobile one, lack of a mouse pointer, screen real estate and a fat finger are a few things that come to mind.

So if I wanted a desktop style app, why wouldn't I just create a desktop app? The only edge case I can think of that wont run something from purebasic is a chrome book, and that's not really a market worth creating a whole new environment for, is it?

I can see the appeal of a centralised code base, a web site so everyone is using the most up to date version etc, but that's nothing a good auto-updater wouldn't solve, right?

Its canvas ability is nice, being able to code in basic for that instead of JavaScript is cool but having to open a window to do things seems weird.

I cant remember the last time I saw a floating movable window in a web page, maybe 1990? As I said above, if you have a window and gadgets, you'll need something to click it with, that'll be a mouse pointer because your interface will have to be massive on a mobile phone to be usable and you wont want to fiddle around with windows then?

I guess, if Spider Basic had the ability to access the html DOM objects directly instead of in lining a bunch of JavaScript it could be very useful to those that don't really want to learn JavaScript. I mean, why would someone use spider basic as a replacement for JavaScript when they have to learn JavaScript anyway because they need to in line a bunch of it to get anything working outside of the provided set of functions.

I had a look at the soccer training demo showcare. That's not really showing off the advantages of what I think you're talking about in your comments. There's nothing cross platform about that. Its a windows style application that could have easily been built with purebasic with a windows/mac executable and cover 99% of its target demographic. It couldn't really be used easily on a tablet or a phablet because the UI is window based. You have to click small drop down menus, drag thin scroll bars etc.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to pick holes in spider basic, I'm just trying to understand its real life use case and to see if I can create something useful with it.

Are you considering linking natively into the html DOM and using it as essentially a basic to JavaScript converter? Because I would much rather code in basic than javascript.

These are very good comments. GUI in SpiderBasic can be modular. If you target mobile and desktop for example you could adapt your GUI to be fullscreen on mobile and windowed on desktop. In the SoccerTrainer case, it is used on tablet without issue and is a big plus for the company behind it (got many positive feedback from them about it). You should also consider other things about browser based GUI frontend:

- You can handle licensing much more easily, as your app needs the server and needs to be connected (it can be done for regular desktop app as well, but it's not often the case, as it will open a background network connection which doesn't fit well with firewall and AntiVirus).
- You can access it from any PC as long you get a connection (you can't always download/install an app when you are on the run)
- Your app runs sandboxed in the browser, which imply it will be safe to execute as long the browser is robust.
- Having every users using the same version of your software is not something to underestimate, it really ease things up (even if an auto updater can do the work, it's much more complicated).
- Same code base for mobile/tablet/desktop, using standard JS is a great plus. We also take care of bundling a lot of a third party libraries so the access to it is unified and easy. You can also use inlined JS in an easy way once your get it.

Well, I admit than SpiderBasic is a 'strange' product, but I do believe it can do a lot and once it will be more mature, it should be able to answer some new demands. It's also a great complement to PureBasic, if you want to target regular desktop and mobile/tablet.

Julian wrote:So if I wanted a desktop style app, why wouldn't I just create a desktop app? The only edge case I can think of that wont run something from purebasic is a chrome book

Raspberry/Banana/Orange Pi?

Mozilla have adopted Google's api for web extensions too and unlike Google's Chrome I think Mozilla plan for Firefox to support extensions on Android.

With regards to mobile I've dabbled with using OpenWindow(0,0,...,#PB_Window_BorderLess) / SetActiveWindow() to make the different screens of a mobile UI which worked ok in my limited experiment.

To me SpiderBasic opens up a number of interesting avenues beyond the convenience of a desktop app that doesn't require a client install and is always up to date.

Thanks for the reply Fred, some interesting info there. I'll take a look at it when I can find some time