need help getting started

[rrr314159]

How can you say Post - judice when you never built any assembly program in VS

- I specifically said I've nothing against that program, seems like a good environment, slower than I like, hey nothing's perfect. Read what I wrote! I didn't criticize its assembler capability, because as u point out I didn't exercise it. That's why I was asking your opinion. Furthermore I believed your opinion, after asking enough q's to clarify - obviously u have the experience I don't.

I said "I hate Microsoft" - hate having to answer security questions on the phone 3 times in a month. I met Bill Gates when we were both in our 20's, have invested in the company and used its products for decades - that's post-judice. The b*****d stole a lot of money from people like me, not with better products but with lawyers and market manipulations. At least, that's my opinion: I don't claim it's definitely right, I could be wrong, but the judgment is made with plenty of experience and facts to back it up.

Postjudice does NOT = right! It only means one has the experience to justify an opinion, which of course might be wrong: no one is infallible, certainly not me.

Certainly a good product [referring to VS] but I hate MS

[hutch--]

> But I agree, of course: noobs should suffer like C programmers do, so that only the best 1% survive as valid assembler programmers

If someone wants to cater for the "noob" market, then best of luck to them, long ago I learnt that unless a programmer has the basics of API code and at least some assembler, they almost exclusively fail. MASM32 is aimed at people who are far enough up the tree to see what can be done next. The old rule applies here, there is no point in trying to make anything idiot proof as there will always be a better idiot.

[dedndave]

it takes a certain amount of persistance to get going
which, i find to be the dividing line that seperates real asm coders from everyone else
if you don't have enough drive to get past the opening problems, you probably won't like asm, anyways

the problem is, those that drop out tend to bad-mouth asm without ever really trying it - lol

[HSE]

.. QE is intentionally built as a pure ascii editor as it gets used for basic, HTML, text files and anything that needs plain ASCII text so the differences are design differences.

Perhaps it's posible add sintax coloring without change the main characteristics. I find that option very useful in whatever programming language I use, along width the posibility of select font type. But font and size must be the same in all the source. I know that RichMasm have a lot of usefull characteristcs, but I can't even read a source code using it because excesive decoration is like "offensive". Of course is only one opinion (mostly from the noobs side).

Regards. HSE         

[rrr314159]

if it is a console application, it keeps the window open, so that the user can see the output.
it builds and runs with a single menu click or keystroke

- notice that both features are achievable using the command window. Of course it stays open, and u can (and do) write a batch file to compile link run all at once. And then u can do other things, like redirect the output, compile and link multiple files (with appropriate batch file) etc. These are the reasons I do it that way. Of course cmd window makes it even less noob-friendly

(btw is there ANYBODY here who builds code without running it??)

- maybe once in a thousand times? You're right there should be a single selection to do all

But I agree, of course: noobs should suffer like C programmers do, so that only the best 1% survive as valid assembler programmers

- you're being ironic, but many people really do have that attitude. Not me; it's good to create a noob-friendly environment as you have; but dedndave's comment (below) is germane

If someone wants to cater for the "noob" market, then best of luck to them

- can't argue with that! No reason you should have to do it

it takes a certain amount of persistance to get going which, i find to be the dividing line that seperates real asm coders from everyone else

- you're right, all programmers need that but asm in particular. A quote mis-attributed to Einstein: "genius is 1% inspiration 99% perspiration". Much truer of coding than "genius" whatever that is

Perhaps it's posible add sintax coloring without change the main characteristics

- I appreciate syntax coloring myself, have often found myself wishing I had it again (when using qEditor) but u can't do that with pure ascii editor. And, pure-ascii-ness is more important to me. Don't see any reasonable compromise ...

[edit] come to think of it, a pretty-print app, including syntax coloring, for masm32 code would be useful. Run independent of qEditor

[nidud]

deleted

[rrr314159]

Looks like a Christmas tree ... but no doubt the coloring can be changed. What program is that?

Anyway, I figured one would use "rich" text for syntax coloring. So, I assume your example has tags embedded in the text like {color=red}..{/color} or whatever; that's not pure ascii.

For instance, if you were to copy and paste the above syntax-highlighted text into Notepad, would it have tags embedded? And, if you were to type tags like {color=red}..{/color} (or whatever) would they remain as is, or would they turn into two red-colored dots? If it behaves as "pure ascii" then I'm surprised, and would like to know what the program is

[nidud]

deleted

[jj2007]

I know that RichMasm have a lot of usefull characteristcs, but I can't even read a source code using it because excesive decoration is like "offensive".

RichMasm is a "pure Ascii" editor: Just load, for example, \Masm32\examples\exampl04\listview\listview.asm, press Ctrl A to select all, then Ctrl E twice. Every text will be black now. Go to Edit & Format then and select "Fixed font".

(and delete the first line, saying OPT_Res 0 etc - listview.asm does indeed need its rsrc.rc; this is an incorrect assumption of RichMasm that will be fixed in the next edition :redface:)

[HSE]

I figured one would use "rich" text for syntax coloring.

I don't know how editors do that, but its plain text. It's not really "sintax coloring" but "words and symbols coloring". The editor asociate several list of words or symbols width colors (one color for each list), and asociate that configuration width the extention of the file. So its posible to use various "syntax" at the same time (one for each file extention).

JJ:

Thanks a lot. Now is posible to read. I try to find the way a year ago, and never try again. Perhaps in your system the rich text look wondefull, but in my monitor look very crazy, at list for me (I am accustomed to write with mostly gray letters on black backgrounds, and the change of font size is nerve-racking)

HSE

[rrr314159]

sintax coloring

- sin tax coloring: they represent liquor tax as "red", drug paraphernalia tax "green", sex trade tax "blue" ... so office workers can color-code files and forms ... ?

I don't know how editors do that, but its plain text.... The editor asociate several list of words or symbols width colors (one color for each list), and asociate that configuration width the extention of the file.

- how they do that: in the old days they (as I said) used tags like {color=red}...{/color}. Internally the plain text is "marked up" (that's where the term "mark-up language comes from; e.g. HTML = HyperText Mark-up Language) with these tags. Then when it's presented to you the window software reads the tags and colors things appropriately. (Mark-up is also used for bold, italic, fonts etc). To you it looks like "plain text" but it's not, and when you try to use it directly (with copy and paste, or reading the file with notepad) you'll see these mark-up tags.

- And they probably do it that way today also! For instance that's how RichMasm works, using a RichEdit control. Not surprising that u don't know that, as a beginner, but nidud should.

[jj2007]

in the old days they (as I said) used tags like {color=red}...{/color}. Internally the plain text is "marked up" (that's where the term "mark-up language comes from; e.g. HTML = HyperText Mark-up Language) with these tags. Then when it's presented to you the window software reads the tags and colors things appropriately. (Mark-up is also used for bold, italic, fonts etc). To you it looks like "plain text" but it's not, and when you try to use it directly (with copy and paste, or reading the file with notepad) you'll see these mark-up tags.

Actually, the RichEdit control exports both plain text and formatted text to the clipboard. When pasting to Notepad, you'll see plain text, while pasting in Word produces formatted text.

Excel and Thunderbird, on the other hand, paste plain text, in spite of their capacity to work with rich text. RichMasm has a special "copy as html" option for this case (under Edit & Format).

[hutch--]

Syntax colouring in a rich edit control is no big deal as long as you avoid crap like RTF notation and the colouring system it natively supports. A rich edit control is genuinely fast if you restrict it to pure ASCII text and if you desperately want technicolor, look up the system that Iczelion designed before the year 2000, it is far faster and no big deal to code. I did a version of QE 15 years ago with syntax colouring and it worked fine, it was just that I hated it and it slowed down the speed that I read code so I never put it into production.

[rrr314159]

Would have to study it more but think you're underplaying it. When exporting to NotePad, when u save it says "the text has special characters if u save it they will be lost" (words to that effect). That's not so bad, but then, every time u save thereafter, it will say it again! PITA. Main problem: if u read the .rtf doc in assembler, with FileOpen (I sometimes massage or create code files in assembler) it's got special chars in it, not what I want at all. Yes you can tell it to save or export in plain text, but u have to tell it every time.

Admittedly not sure about all this, I know above behavior happens with this type of thing, but since I avoid rtf can't be certain of details. But read syntax-colored code into assembler (rtf, or whatever), (saved in ordinary way) it doesn't come in as straight ascii, with no coloring tags or anything - does it? If it does, then I'm wrong

[hutch--]

Just read Iczelion's example.