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Welcome! This wiki documents RFO-BASIC! versions 1.91/1.92/1.92.1, a BASIC interpreter that runs on Android, with a program text editor, that lets old-style programmers quickly write apps with access to most of the device's features, including web surfing, telephony, and texting. This manual is based on the published manual, plus comments the community has provided on the Forum.

Pages of this wiki will be written gradually and will be based on the existing manual, on personal observations, on study of the examples in the distribution kit, and on discussions on the Forum. Any given assertion might not yet have been reviewed by anyone with detailed knowledge of the code. It may give you additional insight but you rely on it at your own risk. This website is not complete until we say it is!

This wiki contains an overview article, which is a useful place to start reading.

To make suggestions or report mistakes, click on "Discussion" at the top of the article in question, to edit that article's talk page; or use the Forum. This is a wiki that anyone can edit. However, if English is not your native language, please comment on the Discussion page, adding links to relevant Forum discussions or bug reports, and allow me to shine it up.

Running RFO-BASIC! programs
Apps written in RFO-BASIC! can be activated in one of two ways:
 * 1) You can sideload the APK file for RFO-BASIC! and install it on the Android device. Then run it and give it the permissions it requests.  This is not as scary as it seems; for example, RFO-BASIC! does not need to send texts, but it requests that permission so that BASIC programs can do so (with the SMS statements).A BASIC source file can be transferred to the Android device in any desired way, such as with Bluetooth, web transfer, or thumbdrive.  BASIC code can also be written using the text editor in RFO-BASIC!.Once both RFO-BASIC! and the BASIC source program are on board, you can run the program in one of the following ways:
 * 2) *Start RFO-BASIC, select Load and run on the pulldown menu, and specify the name of the BASIC source program.
 * 3) *Installing RFO-BASIC! adds a widget that lets you associate a BASIC source program with a graphic and places the graphic on the home screen. The Android device will run the BASIC program whenever you touch the graphic.
 * 4) Using the program shown below, you can develop the BASIC program on a PC and create an APK file that includes both the RFO-BASIC! interpreter and the BASIC program. This APK file can be sideloaded onto the Android device.

APK files created using option 2 above are not "shrink-wrapped" programs. A user of the APK file could view or change the BASIC code by renaming APK to ZIP and then exploring the file.

Newer versions
In 2019, Google imposed new requirements on publishing APK files created using option 2 above on the Google Play Store. RFO-BASIC! version 1.91 used API 18 as the target Android version, but Google requires that apps published on the Play Store must target Android API Level 26. RFO-BASIC! version 1.92, published in April 2019, runs on API Level 27 (Android 8/Oreo). It can run on API Level 28 (Android 9/Pie) but some commands fail.
 * Version 1.92

Additional changes in version 1.92 are as follows:
 * On installation, the procedure to grant RFO-BASIC! various Android permissions is different.
 * The user interface uses Japanese if that is the locale specified for the Android device.
 * SMS messaging is no longer supported in the Google Play Edition, but is supported in the Full Edition.
 * The documentation of the NOTIFY statement (to place a notification in the Android Status Bar — not yet documented on this wiki) mentions that it will deliver different results on different versions of Android.

A version called 1.92-gp (Google Play) was prepared, limited to meet Google's restrictions on the Play Store, but was never put into the Play Store because bugs remained, primarily related to changes Google made to programs that used the Apache library.
 * Version 1.92.1

On 30-Jul-20, Mougino prepared version 1.92.1. It omitted the SMS statements, packaged in the GW user-interface library and a new  as an introduction, revised and corrected , and fixed the crash in the DEVICE statement in API 22 and newer. It targets API 29.

The package name is  because   already exists in the Play Store. This means it could coexist with the other "current versions," and a BASIC program running under 1.92.1 could run concurrently with a BASIC program running under another current version. You should rename the  directory before installing the version 1.92.1, in order to preserve work done under the old version.

Alternatives to version 1.92 are to use one of the private versions of RFO-BASIC!, such as hBasic or Oli-BASIC, or special instructions to the APK compiler.

Resources
Implementors are welcome to modify the web addresses in this list if their projects move.


 * RFO-BASIC! software as of July 2020
 * Version 1.92.1 (see above)


 * RFO-BASIC! software as of April 2019
 * Version 1.92 (see above)
 * Full release notes have not yet been completed.


 * RFO-BASIC! software as of March 2017
 * The official RFO-BASIC! version 1.91 (an .APK that can be sideloaded into an Android device and then installed)
 * It and many support tools are also in the Google Play Store
 * Sources, tools, and bug reports are on Github
 * The official version 1.91 manual, De Re BASIC!
 * As a .PDF file, at Bintray
 * In HTML (web page)
 * Version 1.91 Release Notes at Bintray
 * An incomplete tutorial based on version 1.71

Private versions
Several users have taken RFO-BASIC! further and published newer versions. This wiki describes areas in which they have done additional work, but does not document their versions.

hBasic
The hBasic edition and its documentation are available at the hBasic repository, http://humpty.drivehq.com/promotes/rfo-basic/hbasic/repository/index.html — This includes:
 * v02.93, 1-Apr-20, updated to target Android API 29, with a flag in the Manifest to specify the traditional file-storage scheme instead of Scoped Storage; ensures that the DEVICE.OS statement returns a usable result
 * v03.32, 29-Oct-21, restructures the text console; colors can be specified by strings. Announced in the Forum.
 * v04.15, 27-Feb-22, more options for user menus and the user interface. Uses Android 11 "Themes" compatibly across console, graphics display, and HTML display.  This is v04.13 with error corrections, announced in the Forum.

Filenames on this server may have _file appended (such as hbasic.v04.15.apk_file). This must be removed manually after downloading to get a usable .APK file.

OLI-BASIC

 * OLI-BASIC (version 20) with examples
 * OLI-BASIC (version 21, 23-Dec-17)
 * OLI-BASIC (preview of version 30, targets Android API 28)
 * OLI-BASIC (preview of version 30, 8-Feb-21, bug fixes, documentation is an attachment to this Forum thread)

Grau-BASIC
Grau-BASIC is RFO-BASIC! v1.91 with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support, supporting source file editing from the PC.
 * Grau-BASIC

Other support software
The GW library is Mougino's user-defined functions that create user-interface objects to make it easy to write an app. The library is a part of RFO-BASIC! version 1.92.1. Download information for version 5.5 (25-Feb-21) is available through the [https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/rfobasic/announcing-gw-a-gui-lib-to-easily-create-apps-t2998-s450.html RFO-Basic! Forum].
 * GW library

Mougino announced the Android BASIC compiler in 2016. It assembles the RFO-Basic! interpreter directly from GitHub, plus the user's desired BASIC program, and produces an APK file.
 * Android BASIC Compiler (ABC)

In January 2022, Google removed it from the Play Store, claiming that it uploaded the user's phone number. Mougino provided source code to disprove this but did not prevail. He specifies in the Forum how to get an archived copy of ABC.

The private variant hBasic (see above) is structured as a variety of patches applied to standard RFO-Basic!. The hSuite package lets the user apply any or all of those patches, creating a personal hBasic with only the desired features. The current version is hSuite v3.07. It is available on DropBox for Windows or Linux.
 * hSuite

This wiki contains the documentation for the following user-defined function, which anyone is welcome to include in BASIC programs:
 * BASIC routines
 * Scrolling Selection Window

For more support software, visit the Tools for BASIC! topic on the Forum
 * RFODESIGNER — Integrated Development Environment to develop BASIC programs and APKs on the PC for sideloading
 * Launcher — Mougino's software that lets you write BASIC code on the PC and then transfer it and execute it on your Android device


 * Other helpful information
 * The Forum of users of RFO-BASIC!
 * A page of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the Miraheze wiki farm that hosts this guide
 * The MediaWiki help center: How to edit a website like this one