NS Basic Programming for Palm OS
Third Edition

 

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PDF Format (non-printable) - available directly from the author (complete with all source code and extras included in the book's CD).  No need to wait (or pay) for shipping! 

Price: $29.95 US

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PDF Format - exactly as above, except printable!

Price: $39.95 US

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New in NS Basic Programming for Palm OS - Third Edition

Updated to cover through version 5.1

  1. New Runtime Debugger.
  2. Code Hints - see args to functions as you type.
  3. Code Completion - see members of objects as you type.
  4. Auto Indent - code automatically indents as you type.
  5. Code drag and drop supported in Code Window.
  6. Automatic brace matching - keep your parenthesis matched!
  7. Horizontal line dividers between subs and funcs.
  8. Left, top, width, height of objects can be changed at runtime.
  9. New Slider control.
  10. New Shared Library: DBLib for databases.
  11. New Shared Library: DevInfoLib for device info.
  12. New Shared Library: DocLib.
  13. New Shared Library: DocReaderLib for DOC reading.
  14. New Shared Library: NSBLifeDrive for multimedia.
  15. Shared libs, SysTrap functions now support arrays (and nulls!)
  16. New Grid.FontMatrix(row,col) function.
  17. F1 brings up the Language Reference help file.

Helpful Links

NS Basic Corporation
Palm Recommended Reading

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Updates/Bonus Projects/Corrections/Clarifications

Please note: code in this book, unless part of a project, is meant to demonstrate syntax or concepts. Most of these code snippets can be used in your projects, but may need to be modified to fit the context of your applications. For examples of code in situ, see the project samples and templates on the book's CD.

Oops! I accidentally left out names of some of my reviewers and contributors. So, without further delay, here are the names of the additional reviewers who helped edit and/or contribute code to the third edition:

Rich Heard
Ronnie Toon


Freebies:

Freebie 1 - With the introduction of the much-awaited Grid in version 4 of NS Basic for Palm OS, I decided to remove the section in the first edition of this book that dealt with emulating a table in NS Basic. However, although the Grid is great for displaying items in a row/column format, it doesn't allow direct text entry. Since my previous Table projects *do* allow direct text entry, you might find them helpful. I kept the projects on the CD, and you can now gain access to the Table emulation section (table.pdf) from the first edition of the book. You'll get the most out of this section by printing it out and keeping in the book, referring to it with the Table demo projects active in the IDE.

Freebie 2 - Direct Palm OS downloads! Don't waste time downloading to your desktop and HotSync'ing. Just download these directly to your Palm OS device, and you'll wonder why everything isn't this easy!

Reader submissions
Found an error?  Have a suggestion?  Please submit them from here.  Thanks!

Updated projects:

Bonus Projects/code:
NSB Lander - Moon Landing game (uses NSBSystemLib) to demonstrate pseudo-multitasking (download the installable files here)
Progress Bar Clock - Digital Clock with progress bars added for hour, minute, and seconds display.  Written to demonstrate the use of horizontal progress bars
SimpleProgBar - Simplify your progress bars!  Supply the title and percent complete, and these routines do the rest.  Purely graphical, no form objects used (although a form must be currently loaded for these routines to work consistently in Palm OS 5 and above)
PalmPrint code module - provides significantly more control over printing and transmission of data via PalmPrint
BitmapSwitcher - create bitmaps that change status as soon as they're pressed, then change back when the stylus is released
List Lookup - like the Palm Address book, lets your user start to enter information in a field, then locates the appropriate record in an alphabetically sorted list
KeyPad Demo - Uses the NSBSystemLib and 4 bitmaps to create a form with keypad that automatically handles multiple fields
Pregnancy Calculator - estimates date of conception, end of first and second trimesters, and delivery date from LMP
Compression Demo - Simple text compression that saves approximately 15-25% of space for strings (based on DOC-style compression)
Dice Roller - Demonstrates animating bitmaps by rolling a pair of dice.  Useful for when you lose dice to a game.
Timer Clock - NSBasic now has a Timer, using SysInfoSet ("timer",nnnn).  The Timer is "set" using SysInfoSet with "timer" as the first argument, and the number of milliseconds as the second argument.  When this number of milliseconds has lapsed, the nsbTimer event will be posted to the event queue.  In your event code, check for the presence of this event, and perform the appropriate action.  If you use 0 as the number of milliseconds, the Timer will effectively be turned off.  TimerClock is a variation of the AnalogClock project, using the Timer rather than a program loop to update the clock display.

Corrections (will be corrected in the next printing):

Clarifications (will be modified in the next printing):

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Contact Information

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Last revised 10/13/2006