ZBasic 5.0
Volume Number: 5
Issue Number: 2
Column Tag: Basic School
Zedcor Compiler 5.0 
By Dave Kelly, Editorial Board
Note: Source code files accompanying article are located on MacTech CD-ROM orsource code disks.
It seems that a month doesn’t go by that we don’t see an update to BASIC. This
month we will talk about what’s new with ZBasic Compiler version 5.0. After a couple
of years with ZBasic in our midst, Zedcor now has a solid product and it‘s still the
fastest Basic available for the Macintosh.
New Price
The worst news is that Zedcor has raised the price to $199.95. The interesting
thing about the increase in price is that both Microsoft and True Basic, Inc. have
adjusted their prices to be competitive with Zedcor’s ZBasic. What do you get for the
price? You get the ZBasic compiler with built in editor (which now works without
crashing), a new Macintosh only manual, ZConvert.BAS program for converting
MSBASIC to ZBasic, “The Program Generator” used for creating program shells,
ZMover Toolbox editor which is used to add or delete toolbox routines or USR routines,
and dozens of usable examples and utility routines. The Program Generator program is
a new rewritten product, not the old program generator which has been sold separately
by Zedcor.
The Compiler
The ZBasic Compiler version 5.0 now appears to be a very solid product. It’s
refreshing to be debugging my own programming errors instead of those of ZBasic. Of
course, it is not possible to check every single command and toolbox call to report to
you if a bomb occurred, but with those that I have tried I have had 100% success!
Zedcor’s built in editor now works, although it is not as fancy as Microsoft’s
“pretty-printing” editor. The important thing is to be able to edit a program without
going through the load-edit-save-compile-debug...etc. cycle. For search and replace
you will have to rely on other text editors; ZBasic only has a Find command.
The Hypertext Help system is excellent if you want to look up something while
using ZBasic. Clicking on keywords moves you through the Help system to find just
what you are looking for. It’s like having the manual on line all the time.
The configuration options have changed only slightly from previous versions.
You may now set the bundle bit of your application as it is compiled. In “Expert
Programmer Mode” you can turn off the “Are you sure?” dialog boxes (Are you sure
you want to turn this off?). One missing feature is the ability to automatically include
a resource file in the compiled application or use the resource file when running under
the ZBasic environment. Instead, Zedcor includes a copy of ResEdit (not the latest
version) which you can use to move your resources to your new application.