calling liberty Basic programs

[bushrat]

been a Liberty Basic user for many years, had a lot of fun with it.

so, I've written a stack of independent programs on subject X they all run perfectly.

Problem: I don't want to merge them all into one giant program (about 15,000 lines) neither do I want to run each program independently.

What I have done is written a master menu program which calls the independent programs as I select a topic of my choice via a radiobutton in the master menu program.

This I've done by making all the sub programs 'TKN' files and everything once again works perfectly - except for returning back cleanly to the master menu program.

Once a chosen TKN file has executed I get a message that "program XXX has executed..." which I don't want to see (and in settings there is a box to check for this to be hidden or not but it doesn't work) and in addition I get a blank screen page which I also don't want to see. I can leave the page by exiting manually (top RH corner 'X') but I shouldn't have to do this surely?

More generally when I'm running any program and it's finished executing I never get back to the source code page where the 'Run' command started it. Is this normal?

I hope that all makes sense and someone has the patience to reply - if you do, then thanks in advance.

[tsh73]

Does your child program that leaves screen a console program (mainwin) or GUI?
If it's console program, does it ends with END or just runs to last line?
Do you call program with
RUN child.tkn
or
RUN runtime.exe child.tkn
?

in my test, console child run throught runtime ending with END closes cleanly.
Also,
RUN child.tkn
waits for child to finish, while
RUN runtime.exe child.tkn
returns immediately to caller program (so caller and child execute in parallel).

[bushrat]

wow! quick response thanks.

yeah, I should have been a bit more specific.

the child program is 'mainwin' - should I be closing 'mainwin' in the child program?

Child program is called with 'run child.tkn'

The child program simply finishes with 'end'

I've never run any program with '.exe' extension? - only ever run with '.bas' extension?

Maybe I've been mistaken about running Liberty programs since ever?

If you have further advice I'd be grateful.

thanks for your help.

[tsh73]

Maybe I've been mistaken about running Liberty programs since ever?

If you say it worked for you, that means it's Ok.

help on RUN
www.libertybasicuniversity.com/lb4help/L64YX_.htm
explains how to run EXE file.

Help on Using the Runtime Engine
www.libertybasicuniversity.com/lb4help/Using_the_Runtime_Engine.htm
explains how to make EXE file from BAS.

So putting it all together, you got something like
RUN "run451.exe yourtkn.tkn"
(run404.exe - depends on your LB version)
- may be with paths added (to EXE and possibly to TKN,
and if paths contain spaces ("Program files" do!) you have to wrap it with quotes)
Something like this

qq$=chr$(34) '(")
RUN qq$;"C:\Program Files\Liberty BASIC v4.5.1\run451.exe";qq$;" ";qq$;"C:\some_path_to_tkn\yourtkn.tkn";qq$


This thread last post
libertybasiccom.proboards.com/thread/388/calling-invoking-program
contains API call to run EXE and wait it finished.

[Rod]

We are back to the nomainwin problem. It is a debugging and testing resource, it has limitations. One of which is that it is always on.

Try this master.bas

   nomainwin
   WindowWidth = 400
   WindowHeight = 400
   UpperLeftX = int((DisplayWidth-WindowWidth)/2)
   UpperLeftY = int((DisplayHeight-WindowHeight)/2)
   button #1.ae, "Program 1", [p1], UL, 100, 100, 200,20
   button #1.ae, "Program 2", [p2], UL, 100, 130,200, 20
   open "Program Manager" for window as #1
   print #1, "trapclose [quit]"
   wait

   [p1]
   run "p1.tkn"
   wait

   [p2]
   run "p2.tkn"
   wait

   [quit]
   close #1
   end



Now create two .tkn files called p1.tkn and p2.tkn from this child.bas
   'set the window size
   nomainwin
   WindowWidth = 400
   WindowHeight = 300
   statictext #demo, "Counter", 10, 10, 40, 18
   textbox #demo.counter, 90, 10, 180, 25
   button #demo.bexit, "Exit", [quit], UL, 200, 100
   button #demo.bstart, "Restart", [restartClicked], UL, 100, 100

   'open the window
   open "Child" for window as #demo
   'tell the window where to go when it closes
   print #demo, "trapclose [quit]"

   'start timer calls
   timer 100,[count]
   wait

       [count]
       counter=counter+1
       print #demo.counter, counter
       wait


   [restartClicked]
   timer 0
   counter=0
   timer 100,[count]
   wait

   [quit]
   close #demo
   end




Now in this code set I close the debugging and testing window and gain complete control over the GUI windows that my program launches.

[bushrat]

Thank you tsh73 and Rod for your helpful replies.

Unfortunately I just got swamped with work but as soon as I have some free time I'll try all suggestions and I'll let you know the results.

thanks again.