I am entering a TI-BASIC program into the ongoing contest. It is not going to be released, but I can tell you some of what it does. If you want more info, reply to this post...

Don't tease us, where's the description and screenshots?

Ok. Here's a screenshot. I need to have people request specific information about the program. Like Q&A

Why can't you just tell us what it is? If you aren't going to tell us what it is and make us play this inane game, don't bother posting about it at all T_T;

It's a clock! Very nice, what Doors CS features does it use?

Alright, then. It is meant to be attached as a hook into the DCS shell as its default clock. It displays, month, date, year, day, and time in both analog and digital modes... See screen capture above. I couldn't get it to use any DCS features, as it does not require a library, or anything else DCS provides...

Default clock? (Whaaa?) And what on earth does a hook have to do with this?

Perhaps a DCS icon?

You know what would be _really_ cool? Have it self edit the icon header (with the DCS-Celtic lib) so that from the DCS homescreen, it shows the current(-ish) time.

I am only experienced in TI-BASIC. And if that is possible in TI-BASIC, please let me know

As am I (when it comes to calculators, at any rate).

And yes, I'm talking about TIBasic, with DCS7 libs.

You have yet to explain what hooks have to do with it...

A hook is a button you press while the shell is running, and that hook signals another program to run. So say if you're running DCS 7 on your calculator, and you press the X button. This makes the DATETIME prgm run

Could one use a string to place a DCS header? Or! Use a lib function to assign an icon to the dcs var, and call that var and call it for the header.

Related to your program, tge program has to use libraries within DCS7.

...not exactly.

But anyways, how will you do this in TIBasic?

@Alex
I was thinking that you could just swap the icon string header... wouldn't that work?

TI_Coder, I'm afraid that at this point your program does not meet the minimum requirements of the contest, viz., that it use some aspect of Doors CS, even if it's only a BASIC header. With regards to hooks, if you read Chapter 7 of the DCS 7 SDK (pp 94-96), you can learn about Shell Expansions (SEs) and how they work. Needless to say, they are an ASM-only tool at this point.

Ok. Well then I don't want to enter it into the contest. I am wondering if it can be used as the default clock for DCS7

If you could write it in assembly as an SE, then it would be a perfect entry for the contest. There is no default clock in DCS7, nor will there be, but if you wrote it as an SE, people could put it on their calculators and use it as a clock in Doors CS. You should still enter it in the contest; just take a look at the SDK and see what DCS-related things you could add, such as an icon and header, use of the DCS libs, etc.

I guess I haven't made it clear enough. I have almost NO experience in assembly. For me to re-write it in assembly wouldn't happen unless I had specific help from someone who is experienced.

TI_Coder: You can still make your program fit the needs of the contest. Just use a few routines to speed up the drawing of the clock hands and perhaps a menu to select 24h or 12h Manual & Digital versions of the clock.

And with the routines you can use a fastdraw routine to make the Analog clock black with white numbers/hands for night and normal for day, perhaps the same with Digital.

EDIT: Here are some routines to help you out. They are all in BASIC:

DrawShape - No circle shape but I've seen square analog clocks; I see them everyday at work ;D

CreatePIC - Not sure how you could use this, but you can draw sprites on the graph screen when the program starts then save it to pic99 - yes, 99 - via this routine and recall them at will. It'll be much faster than drawing everything. (Note to Kerm: perhaps a routine to rotate sprites? That could be insanely useful in an analog clock or in games that need spinning affects. Argument Such as sprite location height and width, then the number of degree's to rotate.)

GUIMenu - Create a menu to select clock then add another one to select whether it's 12h or 24h. Use the values (such as 1 & 0 - digital and 24h, say) to render the appropriate clock.

TI_Coder, you _must_ use a DCS library, perhaps a GUImenu? or even a Simple GUImouse? Or use a header? Making a header, isnt that hard :/

TI_Coder: if you want to view an entire list of BASIC Routines supported and offered by DCS7, check here.


Edit: +/ http://dcs.cemetech.net/index.php?title=SDK#BASIC

I'll leave that BBCode fail as a reminder for Kerm to update the URL checker or w/e.

Edit2: Kerm. Don't let proper grammer break URL's now

How would one do that when the icon string is "0320324A7FG92 or w/e. If one could use a string to generate an icon, that'd be great but it would get easily corrupted if another program uses the same string.

A BASIC program cannot self-edit. Even with help from a library iirc.

Maybe a goto and an engine that generates a DCS icon string from list info then quits to shell. But DCS would have to run the part of the program on App load or even page load, so it'd get impractical I'd imagine. Unless the engine can prove itself as quick. It could even be written by some one here and included in a revision to the SDK so other coders could use the same routine to keep things consistant.

"SDK" works even when "Developers' SDK" doesn't. Just to reiterate what comicIDIOT is saying, TI_Coder, there's tons of stuff you can do as far as harnessing the power of DCS within BASIC. Feel free to peruse the PDF SDK:

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/341/34192.html