This is a tool that I’ve been using for quite a long while, just recently I fixed a small bug in the regexp and I thought it was time to share it.

For those of you using the official IDE, there’s no real solution to this “problem”. When you’re working on something small, it’s not a big deal to define a couple of declares here and there… However, on bigger code this becomes a real issue!. So why waste the time switching between IDEs or doing it by hand?…

Grab it and let me know how it runs! (nasty ugly source included).

The tool is very simple to install, I recommend you unzip directly into your PB directory and configure it as follows:

That’s it. You’re ready to declar’em!.

Cheers.

You can’t just say “it’s Microsoft’s fault” — Are you in some sort of mac-only cleanse?, What’s your #%&%#$ problem?!

Those who “pass the ball” (as the user suggested) are part of the problem. You, being a programmer can certainly code a simple CBT hook, right?. Are you against hooks, perhaps – you are a purist, I hear… Sorry, but sometimes solutions are “dirty” and you have to live with them.

Just for the record, I too use a split-screen and I find it annoying that dialog boxes are not centered to their parent.

I certainly think that this sort of behavior is not good for a business, but then again they’ve been cat-walking away from reality for years now (Look at their website if not, look at the fact that they haven’t implemented basic functionality to their language and by basic I mean a proper container library and whatnot!). Most of their user-base consists of people who are afraid of real, world-class languages. That’s my opinion, take it or leave it.

But before you throw crap at me do remember that I support them, I just don’t like the way they’re doing things. Pretty much like Apple does (they do crap) however the fanboys don’t realize this and they see any criticism as bad for the company image, when in fact what damages the company is that nonsense wall they put up when anybody, and I do mean “anybody” says “anything” that appears to be “against” their product/s.

Even if you don’t like it at least have the decency to hear those who are genuinely interested in your product, those who are giving away (and for free) true and useful suggestions for you to improve them. I don’t give a damn about this particular user but I do care when a so called company does this sort of things to their own users, it’s just uncalled for and plainly unprofessional.

Have a nice day, code follows.

; This snippet was based on the following code by Microsoft:
; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180936
EnableExplicit ; The only way to go.
 
Procedure.i CenterMsgCallBack( uMsg.i, wParam.i, lParam.i ) 
 
	Select uMsg
		Case #HCBT_ACTIVATE
 
			Define.RECT typFormRect, typRectMsg
			Define.i plMsgHook, hWnd
			Define.i lxPos, lyPos
 
			hWnd = GetParent_(wParam) 																																																		; the parent will be the callee
 
			If hWnd 																																																											; can't hurt to check.
 
				plMsgHook 	= GetWindowLong_( hWnd, #GWL_USERDATA ) 																																				; get the hook address
 
				If plMsgHook 																																																								; can't hurt to check.
 
					GetWindowRect_( hWnd, typFormRect )
					GetWindowRect_( wParam, typRectMsg )
 
					lxPos = (typFormRect\Left + (typFormRect\Right - typFormRect\Left) / 2) - ((typRectMsg\Right - typRectMsg\Left) / 2)
					lyPos = (typFormRect\Top  +	(typFormRect\Bottom - typFormRect\Top) / 2) - ((typRectMsg\Bottom - typRectMsg\Top) / 2)
 
					SetWindowPos_( wParam, 0, lxPos, lyPos, 0, 0,	#SWP_NOSIZE | #SWP_NOZORDER | #SWP_NOACTIVATE ) 														; position the window.
					UnhookWindowsHookEx_(plMsgHook) 																																													; release the hook.
					SetWindowLong_( hWnd, #GWL_USERDATA, #Null ) 																																							; unset the user data.
 
				EndIf
 
			EndIf
	EndSelect
 
EndProcedure 
 
Procedure.i CenteredMessageRequester( Title.s, Text.s, Flags.i=#Null, hWnd.i=#Null )
 
	Define.i lInstance, lThreadID, plMsgHook
 
	If Not hWnd
		hWnd = WindowID( GetActiveWindow() )
	EndIf
 
	If hWnd
 
		lInstance = GetWindowLong_( hWnd, #GWL_HINSTANCE )
		lThreadID = GetCurrentThreadId_()
 
		If lInstance And lThreadID 																																																			; just to make sure, can't hurt.
 
			plMsgHook = SetWindowsHookEx_(#WH_CBT, @CenterMsgCallBack(), lInstance, lThreadID) 																						; create the cbt hook.
			SetWindowLong_(	hWnd, #GWL_USERDATA, plMsgHook ) 																																							; save the hook address, we'll need it to release it.
 
			ProcedureReturn MessageBox_( hWnd, Text, Title, Flags )																																				; finally, create the message box.
 
		EndIf
	EndIf
 
EndProcedure

And a small example:

OpenWindow( 0, 500, 200, 400, 200, "testing" )																																											; test window
MessageRequester( ":(", "I'm a normal messagebox", #MB_APPLMODAL | #MB_ICONERROR )																									; conventional msgbox
CenteredMessageRequester( ":)", "I'm a centered messagebox!", #MB_APPLMODAL | #MB_ICONEXCLAMATION )																	; our centered msgbox.

The “Programmer” can now copy&paste and compile.

Cheers.

PS: You can also find the source in here: http://gushh.net/dev/?file=pb/centermessagebox.pb As usual, that’s my code repository for PB.

Whenever you deal with structures and what have you it’s obvious that there has to be a better way of doing it. Think about it, you encapsulate your structure-related code in such a way that it becomes clean, nice and tidy — in other words it makes it easy to understand what it does.

However in essence, you end up writing pretty much the same allocate / deallocate, list, etc. code every time you incorporate a new “class” into your project. Why should we?, let’s avoid it all together and focus our efforts in the task at hand rather than in the mundane stuff.

If you open your eyes you’ll see that this is an obvious pattern but what isn’t so obvious is how do you implement a template that deals with it in an efficient and clean way within the current constraints of the language.

Well… Have no fear, EasyObject is here!
First, download it. Secondly, embrace it.

Third, you’re free to post any comments regarding on how to enhance it if you dear to!.

Ok, now let’s describe this thing a little more and leave the marketing speech in the past.

From the “readme”:

EasyObject is an object factory template for PureBasic. It allows you to register any structure as a “class”. With EasyObject you can define constructors and destructors as well as iterators with ease.

The purpose of EasyObject is mainly to encapsulate trivial and redundant code usually regarded to allocation, deallocation and keeping track of the objects. The usage is fairly simple: classes can be registered and unregistered. Once a class has been registered, we can create new objects and delete them at will. If we decide to unregister a class, all of the objects will be freed and their respective destructors will be called.

More from where that came from…

Macros in this case are used as an aid to define templates (like you would in C++ for instance). There are certain limitations that forced me to design the template as it is right now but the usage is very simple. We’re not trying to mimic any language here but rather provide a way of dealing with objects without having to write redundant code all the time. Because overloading doesn’t exist in PB, the constructor will be called twice (once by the template and once by yourself) if you want to define the members using said ctor, just make certain that any dynamic allocations are performed only once or you’ll have a nasty memory leak in your hands.

It’s clear that some limitations are present in the template but for most of the tasks this is a great addition to anyone’s code.

Let me know if you find any bugs!

Cheers,
GuShH

This routines, while not too elegant, do the same (or similar) job as PHP but in PB:

(I know, the PHP lexer I’m using has a bug on the PB definition, I’ll take a look later).

 is_alpha(); is_numeric(); is_symbol();

They are amongst the most basic routines out there, however, they are still useful nonetheless.

You can grab the include/source from here: http://gushh.net/dev/?file=pb/ascii_helpers.pb

If you’re working on a Lexer, Parser, or similar… this will come in handy in case you don’t have it already.

Cheers.