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Welcome! This wiki documents RFO-BASIC! version 1.91, 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 may also document new features, clearly labeled as "unimplemented," in order to get the user community to agree on their design and get them implemented in an orderly way.

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[edit]

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 permissions so that a BASIC program can take any desired action (such as send a text). 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 both on board, you can run the program in one of the following ways:
    • Start RFO-BASIC, select Load and run on the pulldown menu, and specify the name of the BASIC source program.
    • 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.
  2. 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.

APK files created using option 2 above can be published on the Google Play Store. However, for RFO-BASIC! version 1.91, the target Android version is API 18. Google announced in 2018 that apps published on the Play Store will have to target Android version API 26. This means that APK files based on RFO-BASIC! version 1.91 will be unable to be published on the Play Store. Use of a private version of RFO-BASIC! may solve this problem. The author of OLI-BASIC plans to issue a version with the correct Android target.

Resources[edit]

Readers are welcome to replace the red-links with URLs to the real thing.

RFO-BASIC! software as of March 2017
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.

Support software
Other helpful information

Sources[edit]

Manual contents (Statement index)
Language features Arrays • Data structures • Interrupt routines • User-defined functions
Interfaces Audio player • Bluetooth • Graphics • HTML • Sockets • SQL
Programming notes Coexisting with Android
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