Would it be possible to write a full blown TeamViewer in B4X in just 30 days? That was the question posed about a week ago on the B4X forum. Not a small thing to ask, because how would one get started with something huge as this?
TeamViewer has a lot to offer:
Remote control a PC/Mobile
File Transfer
Clipboard copy between host and client
Advanced Remote functionalities like doing a Reboot
Reduce resolution/remove wallpaper on slow connections
Address book
Multiple connections
…
Could this be done?
Saif Sameer and his team of B4XCode.com say they can. And they even upped the ante by saying they would do it in just 30 days!
They have released the source code of some excellent Android/Desktop apps written in B4X the past few weeks so I have full confidence if they say they can, they will.
This small team of gifted programmers and UX designers have been selling the source code of some eye catching programs made in B4X:
Some of the projects B4XCode.com is selling
They have taken on this challenge in sort of a ‘crowdfunding’ way: if you sign in for just $50, you will receive the full source code of the project! (EDIT: extended to 2021-02-1, normal price $350)
I already did and many others and so should you. Even if you do not plan to use it, the learning experience on how they did it is probably the best money you will spend this year! I’m very excited about this project and am following its progress like a hawk.
We are only one week in, and the first results they’ve shown are very promising indeed.
Some young and interested African tech enthusiasts completed their first IoT course using the free B4X tools from Anywhere Software, congratulations!
In a hackathon event in celebration with International Arduino Day 2019, a deep overview as seminar on B4X products and specifically utilizing B4R with famous micro controllers and technologies was organized.
Windows updates, you gotta love them! This October update has a lot of developers scratching their head.
Here at OneTwo, we became first aware of the problem when some clients called our support team with the same remark: “Exporting the data to Excel does not work!” After going through the usual procedure following the directions of Roy Trenneman from the IT crowd “have you tried turning it on and off again?“, we quickly became aware there was something more going on…
Indeed, Microsoft had rolled out a new update. “Drop everything, we have a KB hunt on our hands!” A time consuming thing to do, and in the meantime a lot of worried users. Google and the MSDN site had to do overtime too.
SEE UPDATE FURTHER FOR A MORE PERMANENT SOLUTION!
Quite some time later, we found the little buggers. Here is the list for anyone out there banging his head aginst the wall asking himself why his code, which has been running for years, suddenly stopped working:
Windows 7: KB4041681
Windows 8.1: KB40416393
Windows 10: KB4040724/KB4041676
Uninstall them and reboot. Hooray, code is working again!
UPDATE:
It looks like Windows keeps insisting to run the update. Here is a more permanent solution.
1. Find prior version (4.0.9801.0) of msexcl40.dll
2. Place in another directory. They suggest the application directory, but since in the next step you will modify registry to point to this older version, it can probably go anywhere.
3. Update registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel\win32 to point to the location from step 2.
Excellent news from Erel (CEO of Anywhere Software). The excellent B4X suite will support yet another platform: Arduino! Next to support for all desktop platforms, webapps, Raspberry Pi, Android and iOS this new addition is another great step from Anywhere Software towards the most simple framework to make IoT applications.
Unlike the other platforms which generate Java, B4R will generate native C. Users will be able to write their own libraries or use inline C for specific functionalities. More on this later, but make sure you check out the video!
This weekend I’ve found some time to setup my testing environment for B4i, the latest brainchild of Anywhere Software. I must say, being a novice Mac user, setting everything up went very smooth.
The only parts I got into some trouble was my own fault, as I went though the setup tutorials, videos and Beginners Guide just a little bit to fast. Eager to get started, I skimmed through them and forgot some important steps.
First I paid my obligatory taxes to Apple: $99/year. (Programming for Android only sets you back with a one time fee of $25). Only a couple of minutes later, my account was activated.
One part that may have gone a bit to fast for a first time Apple developer was the creation of an App ID. As Erel had his system already setup when he made the video and could just pick an App ID, he did not show us how to create it in the first place. It is mentioned further in the post you can create a single wildcard App ID if you put a .* at the end, but this was not very clear from the tutorial. So, this is how I did it:
Click to enlarge
Another RTFM moment was when I wanted to install the B4i-Bridge app on the device. I started watching the video and forgot to read the bold sentence above it:
Before you install B4i-Bridge you must install the B4I certificate. This step is not shown in the video. Open Safari (device browser) and navigate to: www.b4x.com/ca.pem
Clearly stated, but hey, I was in a hurry…
I first tried the Hosted Builder option to compile the app. Very smooth and a excellent alternative for Windows developers who do not own a Mac. And for $26 a year, a bargain.
But, as I want to experiment with creating libraries myself in Objective-C, I wanted to install the local MacBuildServer. Again, following the tutorial, everything went very well. Downloading XCode took most of the time.
One note: Make sure your Mac is in the same IP range as the rest of your development environment. At first, the Mac had IP 192.168.40.116 while the rest was in the 192.168.1.x range. So it didn’t work.
The rest was pure cosmetic. I added an shortcut on the Mac to start the MacBuildServer, and one on the PC side to shut it down.
Creating the shortcut on the Mac side went like this:
Open up a terminal
go to the folder where you unzipped the macserver-aa (in my case, it’s on the desktop, so it looked like this:
$ cd desktop
$ cd macbuilder-aa
create a text file
$ shout start.command
add the following lines (adjust the cd to the path where your MacBuildServer is)
#!/bin/sh
cd /Users/Alwaysbusy/Desktop/macserver-aa
java -jar B4iBuildServer.jar
save and in the terminal type:
$ chmod -x start.command
Right click on start.command, pic ‘Get Info’ in the menu and rename it to something like ‘B4i Build Server Start.command’.
Click ‘Hide extension’
And change the icon to a nice B4i one. I’ve ripped the B4i icon from the exe (sorry Erel) and saved it as a .png. In case you need it, here it is:
Open the png on the Mac in preview and copy it (Edit – Copy). In the ‘Info Panel’ of the command file, click on the icon until it gets a blue rectangle. Then you can do ‘Edit – Past’.
In my case, it looked like this:
Coming from Windows and being used to creating .bat files, this is all rather complicated on a Mac I must say.
On the PC side I created also the icon to shut the MacBuildServer down. Enter http://:51041/kill in your favorite browser. Create a bookmark and drag it to your desktop. Rename it to something like ‘B4i Build Server Kill’. You can also change the icon:
Right click on the shortcut and pick ‘Properties’
Press ‘change icon’
Browse to where you have installed B4i
Pick B4i.exe and select the icon
So (besides my shortcut creation problems on a Mac), setting up B4i is a breeze! I’m ready to add some serious iOS programming experience to my portfolio.
I Wish I Knew How To… Program the Canvas Control with Xojo Desktop is the latest book of Eugene Dakin in his excellent I Wish I Knew How To… series.
If you ever wondered how stuff is done with the canvas control in Xojo, this is the book you need to have on your virtual shelf. In his well known swift (no pun intended) style, Eugene has written the reference manual for you. Alwaysbusy’s Corner did some humble contributions to the more advanced topics.
For the novice Xojo user, you quickly can get started and learn about the basics of graphics. Step by step you learn more and more when you move through the more advanced topics. This 400 page volume covers a lot of interesting chapters and includes a lot of useful examples with source code:
Topics included in the book:
Text
Chart Fundamentals
Objects
2D Objects
Graphics
Blurring
Cropping
Gaussian Blur
Building basic controls
Animation
and there are two games with step-by-step code explanations to help you build your own.
So head over to Eugene’s Personal Website and get your copy. Also check out his other books in the series on topics like SQLite, XML, PostgreSQL, Office etc…
Can’t wait to play with this. When you’re used to work with B4A, this looks/feels so natural. I bet the learning curve will be absolutely flat.
…Note that the device is not connected with a cable to any computer.
The debugger is almost fully working. You can put breakpoints, monitor the variables and run watch expressions…
2013. When I was a teenager this looked like a magic number. It was the eighties and a golden age for science fiction. We were born at the exact right time. The 21st century was just around the corner and we would get a glimpse of all the marvel that was going to unfold in front of us. I remember my brother and I making some sandwiches just before six o’clock so we wouldn’t miss a thing of our favorite show: Star Trek! When the opening sequence came on, we left planet Earth for 45 exciting minutes. Our heroes were solving an interstellar mystery every week: a PADD in one hand, a Tricorder in the other. Violence was wrong and only used as a last resort. Phasers to stun! We loved the stories and fantasied about the new technology exposed to us. And when dad gave us our first x86, the world was at our fingertips…
And it looked very promising all through the nineties. HAL spoke to us (with a much friendlier voice) and the internet became our realm. Every geek in the technology business had some sort of Star Trek memorabilia in their office. The stories of the writers/visionaries were coming alive! Part of our gadgets today came from the imagination of someone holding a pen in their hand. The PADDs became iPads and our smartphones became the new Tricorders. After TNG we continued our journey with DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. (If you come across the DVD boxes of any of those series, don’t hesitate. Buy them and you’re in for a real treat!)
And then it stopped… almost at the same time the final episodes of this great show rolled out on our TVs…
The first decade of the 21st century was nothing like what we were dreaming of. Yes, we got some of the gadgets our heroes used to save the galaxy, but at a price. Literally. How did the Ferengi ever come up with the Rules of Acquisition? I think they found the book on earth. Every ‘new’ thing is just like the old one. I don’t care for thinner or more lightweight. (I know your wet dream is to let us buy just air someday!)
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a synic. I just do miss my shows. I do not need another ultra-violent, incomprehensible and randomly twisted serie that is cancelled way too early. I want a good story with a wealth of imagination that makes me wonder when I’m lying in bed. Images that let me play around with new ideas and make me want to ponder on great inventions. Reaching for the stars at warp 9.7!
So this is a cry out to all science fiction writers. Please, please let us dream again. Humanity needs a new Star Trek. Desperately…
This version includes several important new features:
– Designer scripts – this is probably the most innovative feature added to Basic4android since the first version. It will make it much easier to support different screen sizes and resolutions.
As quoted from the B4A website:
One of the most common issues that Android developers face is the need to adopt the user interface to devices with different screen sizes.
As described in the visual designer tutorial, you can create multiple layout variants to match different screens.
However it is not feasible nor recommended to create many layout variants.
Basic4android v1.9 introduces a new tool named “designer scripts” that will help you fine tune your layout and easily adjust it to different screens and resolutions.
The idea is to combine the usefulness of the visual designer with the flexibility and power of programming code.
– B4A-Bridge – now supports Bluetooth connections as well as wireless connections.
– Java 7 JDK is supported.
– The logging system was improved and all error messages should now show in the filtered logs.
– List.SortType – new method that allows sorting items of custom types based on one of the type fields.
– Bug fixes and other minor improvements.
Read more on the new exciting scripts feature here.
Today Microsoft released a preview of windows 8. Naturally we do want to test it but knowing Microsoft we do not want to mess up our existing machines 🙂
So we install it on a virtual machine. As for now it does not work on VMWare. However, VMWare 8 will come out in a couple of days and it should support Windows 8.
As for now, we are going to use virtual box 4.1.
Note: click on the pictures if you want to see the full screenshot.
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