Windows PowerBasic - Does it do Windows?

[dilettante]

PowerBasic.

I looked at the web site, but one thing that wasn't clear to me was...

Goes it have a GUI form builder like VB, or do you have to use a bunch of weird tools or buy another PowerBasic product to make a user interface?

Another thing I missed...

Does PowerBasic do COM and DCOM or not? Clearly it makes DLLs, for all I know that's ALL the Windows version does and you're expected to invoke them from a userinterface shell written in VB or something.

But the web site is very quiet on the subject of COM and DCOM.

Does PowerBasic for Windows live in its own pre-COM, pre-ActiveX world? I see references to creating client/server applications - but it seems to use low-level winsock style communication. I see references to building dynamic web pages, but only via the ancient CGI interface - not ISAPI or anything more "modern."

This isn't a gripe, I like what I see in PowerBasic. But I'm left with these questions.

Anybody know anything about the subject?

 

[Guest_imported]

I don't know if PowerBASIC has a GUI form builder, but I know PB Console Compiler can make executables, not just DLLs. I believe ActiveX and the like is supported, as long as you make your own header files, and call those functions using a C-like syntax (i.e. explicit this pointer), rather than a C++-like syntax. But the best thing to do is contact the PowerBasic representatives themselves.
Also check

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/forums/Ultimate.cgi

http://www.basicguru.com/

 

[dilettante]

Thanks Toshi.

I gave up on contacting the PB people too quickly I guess. I assumed that since they couldn't make the product clear on their web site they were simply "communications challenged" nerds like so many of us and would be a dead-end.

Still, if so few people use the product maybe that says something too (like maybe MS has 1E9 times their ad budget?).

Now I have to wonder what their reference materials are like!