Liberty BASIC Preferences
See also: The Liberty BASIC Editor
Notification:
Confirm on exit of Liberty BASIC - This causes Liberty BASIC to ask "Are
you sure?" when you try to close down the Liberty BASIC editor.
Display execution notice - This causes Liberty BASIC to display an
execution complete notice in a program's main window (if it has one) when it is
finished running.
Starting up:
Start Liberty BASIC Editor full-screen - This causes Liberty BASIC to
open the editor so that it fills the whole screen whenever Liberty BASIC is
started up.
Load on startup:
No file - This causes Liberty BASIC to start with no text in the editor,
and a filename of untitled.bas.
Most recent file - This causes Liberty BASIC to start with the file the
user was editing when it was last shut down.
This file - This causes Liberty BASIC to start with the file specified in
the text field.
Compiling:
Show Compile Progress Dialog - This causes a popup dialog to appear when
compiling for Run, Debug, Lite Debug, or Make TKN file. The user can press a
cancel button on the dialog to abort the compile action.
Enable Compiler Reporting - This tells the compiler to apply certain
compile checks and list any interesting results at the bottom of the Liberty
BASIC editor window. See Compiler Reporting.
Create *.BAK File On Run/Debug - This activates a backup mechanism so
that every time a program is run, it is also backed up into a file of the same
name, but with a BAK extension. The user can also specify where to save these
files by typing the location into the textbox provided. As an example, a path to
a different hard drive could be specified as protection against hard drive
failure.
Environment:
Use Syntax Coloring - This toggles the editor's syntax coloring
mechanism. Check this box to see color syntax in the editor, or uncheck it to
use the system default colors for text.
Enable Auto Indenting - This feature causes the Liberty BASIC editor to
copy the level of indenting of the current line to a new line when Enter is
pressed. It also has some support for back-tabbing.
Add 'Kill BASIC Apps' to all Windows - This adds a special menu item to
the system menu of each window in the Liberty BASIC environment (this menu item
can also be found in the Liberty BASIC editor Run menu). This feature is useful
if your BASIC program will not close or shut down, because it allows you to kill
any BASIC program started from the Liberty BASIC editor.
Main window columns/rows - This sets the default size of the main window
for any BASIC program started from the Liberty BASIC editor.
Source filename extension - This specifies the filename extension to use
for BASIC programs. The default is BAS, but the user can change it to something
else if desired. This is especially useful to prevent filename collision if the
programmer also uses other versions of BASIC or other applications that use BAS
as a filename extension.
Reload File on Activate - When this option is set, Liberty BASIC will
check to see if a newer version of the currently loaded file exists and load it
into the editor, replacing what is there. This only happens on activation of the
editor, meaning that some window other than the Liberty BASIC editor was made
active (another editor or GUI drawing program perhaps), and then the editor is
made the active window again by clicking on it or by bringing it to the front in
some other fashion (pressing Alt-Tab for example). Why this is useful: Some
programmers may prefer to use their favorite text editor to write code, saving
the code when they are ready to try running or debugging it. Liberty BASIC will
be open on that file, so after they save in the other editor and switch to
Liberty BASIC, with Reload File on Activate the newest saved version of the file
is automatically reloaded into Liberty BASIC, and all that is needed to run it
is to use the Run menu or to press Shift+F5.
Always Open Main Window on Debug - New in version 4.03: checking this
option in preferences causes the mainwindow always to appear when running
programs in the debugger, even if the programs have a nomainwin statement.
Liberty BASIC Pro Specific Features Follow:
Projects Folder - Specify where to keep the folders for Liberty BASIC projects. If the field is blank the projects are kept in the same place as other *.BAS files.
Filter Bad Characters - Sometimes when code is copied from a web page and pasted into the Liberty BASIC editor there are bad characters that cause errors during compile so this option prevents these characters from being included in the paste operation.