Nuts and Volts - August 2012

■ SCREENSHOT 9. The Galaxy Tab's screenshot capability is overridden when it is in debug mode. So, to show you the new button, I resorted to the Basic4android IDE's Screenshot tool.

thus far, the Generate Members tool will only create a single subroutine called btnStart_Click. We could also have generated btnStart_Up or btn_Start_Down by selecting them in the Generate Members selection window. For now, just clicking the button will do fine. Naturally, the Basic4android IDE wants us to name our new single-button layout. I’ve done so in Screenshot 11. Now, we need to write just a wee just instantiated in Screenshot 9. As you can see, by using the Basic4android Designer attribute controls I’ve added some text and color to the START button. The Basic4android attribute control process is almost identical to the Visual Basic attribute control process.

■ SCREENSHOT 10. I really wanted to show all of the options available to you within the Basic4android Designer's Tools menu.

bit of code:

Sub Activity_Create(FirstTime As Boolean)
 Activity.LoadLayout(“designcyclelayout”)
End Sub

Let’s compile what we have so far and see what turns up. Behold Screenshot 12. Note that the screen title is START BUTTON. That is actually the Activity name which I specified in the Basic4android Designer. By the way, in addition to compiling this little START Button app, Basic4android installed it on my Galaxy Tab. I can actually disconnect my Galaxy Tab from the PC and run the START Button app by tapping its icon. That’s pretty sweet for just one line of code. With that, let’s write another line of code to have the START button kick off what is called a Toast Message:

Sub btnStart_Click
ToastMessageShow(“START BUTTON PRESSED”,True)
End Sub

A Toast Message displays its text for a short period of time and then disappears. The “True” at the end of the text extends the duration of the Toast Message. I extended its appearance time so I could capture Screenshot 13 for you.