How to use

After you successfully installed ThinBASIC, it created following directory structure on your hard drive:
  • Bin
  • Help
  • Inc
  • Lib
  • Licence
  • Mod
  • SampleScripts
  • SDK
  • Sessions
  • ThinAIR
  • UserScripts

The directories marked in green are of the interest for beginner user and newcomers, orange directories to advanced users and red directories mostly cover things needed for ThinBASIC proper functionality.

Directory you should visit first is ThinAIR. ThinAIR is official ThinBASIC interated developement enviroment, which means in human language program to edit your scripts. You can use this program to explore code examples from SampleScripts and save your own creations to UserScripts. By pressing F1 in the IDE you can reach context sensitive files normally saved in Help. You can write your scripts from scratch, or using various predefined templates. Pressing F5 in the IDE will execute immediately your scripts, no need to wait for any form of compilation.

Once you become advanced user, you might be interested in SDK (software developement kit) folder, which allows you to extend ThinBASIC language using custom modules. You can use wide variety of compilers to do so - PowerBASIC, FreeBASIC, MASM or various flavors of C. You can place your custom modules to Mod folder, and if you will be strongly dedicated for providing module support and updates, it might appear in official distribution one day. Only official modules should appear in Lib subdirectory.

Advanced users also might appreciate various include files for 3rd party libraries provided in library Inc.