Small Basic Blog articles

The 17th Anniversary of Small Basic

NonkiTakahashi — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:41:36 GMT

October 23, 2025 is our special day for Small Basic. The newest version of my program is SFF730-14. Have fun and Happy 17th Birthday, Small Basic!!

The 16th Anniversary of Small Basic

NonkiTakahashi — Sun, 25 May 2025 09:20:36 GMT

October 23, 2024 is our special day for Small Basic. The newest version of my program is SFF730-12. Have fun and Happy 16th Birthday, Small Basic!!

15th Anniversery of Small Basic

NonkiTakahashi — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:22:57 GMT

Let's celebrate the 15th anniversary of Small Basic on October 23, 2023. I rewrote my Small Basic program as SFF730-11. Happy 15th Birthday, Small Basic!!

LitDev website reinstated

litdev — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 11:47:32 GMT

The LitDev website with asociated documention and downloads has moved to https://litdev.uk

14th Anniversary of Small Basic

NonkiTakahashi — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 22:15:23 GMT

October 23, 2022 is the 14th anniversary of Small Basic. I rewrote my Small Basic program as SFF730-10. Happy 14th Birthday, Small Basic!!

Small Basic for VS Code

NonkiTakahashi — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 13:04:15 GMT

Today, I'd like to introduce a VS Code extension for Small Basic syntax highlighting and snippets.

You can download "Small Basic for VS Code" written by alxnull (aka Bluegrams) from Visual Studio Marketplace.

You can see a Small Basic program with syntax highlighting.

And you can also choose snippets while editing Small Basic code.

Have fun coding with "Small Basic for VS Code" !

Thank you alxnull for sharing this fantasic extension.

A Tool for LINE Stickers

NonkiTakahashi — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 22:05:49 GMT

Do you know LINE - a popular SNS in Japan and some countries? We use sticker images in chat of LINE. There is a very useful tool to create LINE sticker which name is MagicalDraw.

But to apply LINE stickers, we need more images - a main image and a tab image. These images have different size from sticker images. We can create a main and a tab from sticker images with Paint tool and a little patience.

I used to use GIMP to create them but that was boring works for me.

Then I wrote a Small Basic program HGPP693.000 that make easier to create a main image and a tag image for LINE stickers.

You can create a main and a tag with just drag and drop!

The source code is also uploaded to a GitHub repository nonkit/StickerAid. This program using LitDev Extension. See this repository for more details.

Have fun with LINE stickers!

13th Anniversary of Small Basic

NonkiTakahashi — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 01:33:49 GMT

October 23, 2021 is the 13th anniversary of Small Basic. Let's celebrate the birthday!

Program ID is SFF730-8.

How Your Program Works

NonkiTakahashi — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 03:15:30 GMT

Would you like to learn how your program works? You can learn it with Small Basic Online.

Small Basic Online has new Debug feature. You can run your program step by step. And you can see values of variables and call stack.

Steps to see how your program runs:

Type your program in Small Basic Online editor.
Push [Debug] button.
Push [Memory] icon to see variables and call stack.
Push [Next Line] button to advance one step in your program.

If you'd like to set break point, insert Program.Pause() command in the editor. Then use [Continue] button to run till the break point.

Have Fun with Debug!

Play with micro:bit and Small Basic

Ed Price — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 21:32:36 GMT

This is a look back at a blog post from Nonki...

Originally written on 08/28/2017.

BBC micro:bit is a small board computer for kids. Today I'd like to introduce two programs that communicate between a micro:bit and a PC.

The micro:bit side program is thermometer which is programed with JavaScript Blocks Editor. This program shows temperature at A button clicked and sends temperature to serial port when the temperature changed.

The PC side program is Thermometer.sb which receives temperature from serial port and shows it graphically. The picture below shows Device Manager, Thermometer.sb and chibi:bit (a micro:bit compatible board).

Before running Thermometer.sb, please check the port number in Ports (COM & LPT) such like COM3 with Device Manager. And modify line 88 of Thermometer.sb. Then push reset button and push A button of micro:bit.

Have fun with Small Basic and micro:bit!

Small Basic + micro:bit

Ed Price — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 21:29:27 GMT

Today is a look back at a guest blog post from a teacher, Jez Dean...

Originally written on 09/13/2017.

In this blog post: Build a computer-to-micro:bit connection with Small Basic.

Also, see the article from Nonki, Play with micro:bit and Small Basic.
See the article, Small Basic: How to Use micro:bit, for another solution from Nonki that moves the Turtle.

You can write a simple GUI to send commands to a micro:bit running Python:

The program sends Python commands over a serial connection to the micro:bit. I've kept it as simple as possible so you can customize it further.

Clicking PIN0 High sends the command pin0.write_digital(1) to the micro:bit. You could type display.show(Image.HAPPY) and click Send Command would show a smiley on the micro:bit.

Instructions

Flash a Python program to the micro:bit. You can just flash an empty program from within mu.
Install the lit dev extensions for Small Basic. These are used to communicate over a serial connection.
Find out the COM port of your micro:bit.
Add your COM port at the top of the Small Basic code.

Code

 comPort = "COM4"

Initialise()

While ("True")
  Program.Delay(10)
EndWhile

Sub Initialise
  'draw window'
  GraphicsWindow.Width = 500
  GraphicsWindow.Height = 100
  GraphicsWindow.Title = "Small Basic Microbit Controller"

  'draw pin control buttons'
  pin0high = Controls.AddButton("PIN0 High", 20, 10)
  pin0low = Controls.AddButton("PIN0 Low", 100, 10)

  'draw status and command buttons & boxes'
  statusbox = Controls.AddTextBox(20,50)
  value = Controls.AddTextBox(210,13)
  send = Controls.AddButton("Send Command", 380, 10)

  'Open connection to microbit'
  Controls.SetTextBoxText(statusbox,"Status : "+ LDCommPort.OpenPort(comPort, 9600))

  'Assign variables'
  Controls.ButtonClicked = OnButtonClicked
  nl = Text.GetCharacter(10) 'new line character'
EndSub

Sub OnButtonClicked
  button = Controls.LastClickedButton
  val = Controls.GetTextBoxText(value)

  'if button pressed, send command and new line character'
  If (button = pin0high) Then
    LDCommPort.TXString("pin0.write_digital(1)+nl")
  ElseIf (button = pin0low) Then
    LDCommPort.TXString("pin0.write_digital(0)+n1")
  EndIf
  If (button = send) And (val <> "") Then
    LDCommPort.TXString(val+nl)
  EndIf
EndSub

Adapted from litdev on the Small Basic blog.

Notes

This is not interactive; it will not return any value the microbit sends.
This will only work over USB. Python does not work over Bluetooth.

Other Resources from Jez Dean (website is down now)

Small Basic to Python REPL on Microbit - This article on Jez's site
Add Packages to micro:bit with MakeCode
Microbit Python Program with pySerial and GUIZero
Add Python Modules to the Microbit
microbit & Scratch

Small Basic Forum Migrated to Small Basic on Q&A

NonkiTakahashi — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 15:16:35 GMT

Small Basic Forum has been archived on November 5, 2020. Prior to this, Small Basic on Q&A started on October 10, 2020.

Small Basic Forum

Small Basic Forum started on October 24, 2008 and has been a platform for our community for 12 years.

Small Basic on Q&A

Small Basic on Q&A is a new platform for our community. Following four tags are prepared for Small Basic community.

small-basic-general - Small Basic general questions.
small-basic-community-challenges - Post and reply with community challenges, to experiment with new projects and learn more in the process.
small-basic-featured-program - Post a program that you'd like featured on the SmallBasic.com site and blog.
small-basic-discussion - Post any general discussion topics or any questions that are meant to spark discussion (where you're not trying to get an answer).

Getting Start

The first step to join Small Basic on Q&A is to create your account for Microsoft Q&A. And please check following articles before your post.

Small Basic 12th Anniversary

NonkiTakahashi — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 08:44:55 GMT

October 23, 2020 is the 12th anniversary of Small Basic. I updated my program for the anniversary as SFF730-7. This program is very new because it can run also on newest Small Basic Online with an issue #151 fixed.

Happy Birthday Small Basic!!

Small Basic Online - What's New

NonkiTakahashi — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 05:46:09 GMT

Today, I'd like to introduce current status of Small Basic Online. At first, I will introduce fixed issues this year. Second, I'll tell what is the difference between Small Basic Online (SBO) and Small Basic Desktop (SBD). At last, I will show some ideas to write in SBO.

Fixed issues 2020 in SBO

Following issues have been fixed this year. SBO issues are managed in GitHub.

#152 Array index is not case insensitive.
#150 Array entry never removed
#134 Level 2 Tutorial Should Work (same as #106 and #112)
#133 Level 1 Tutorial should work
#129 Some of spaces will be lost in text literals
#127 Page does not load on Mac+Safari
#126 Default of FontBold is "False"
#122 TextWindow.ReadNumber Doesn't allow negative or decimal numbers
#121 Text.Append does not append all printable character strings
#112 GraphicsWindow.KeyDown event never be called
#107 Turtle appears not on the trailing line on Chrome & Edge browsers
#106 GraphicsWindow.LastKey always return null
#58 GraphicsWindow.DrawImage doesn't show the image
#14 Turtle graphic missing on Edge browser

Changes in SBO

There are many changes in SBO from SBD. SBO is still beta. So, some may be fixed but some will remain as the difference.

New features

Most important point is SBO allows us to program with only browser such as Edge and Chrome. This means SBO runs in not only Windows but other operating systems.
11 new features (Libraries Pane, Debug Mode, Updated Sample Program, New Icon Designs, Advanced Error Handling, Auto Filling, Hover Hints, Save & Open, TXT File Format, Open Source on GitHub, Double Display) are described in Ed's "NEW UPDATES: Small Basic Website 2.2 & Small Basic Online 1.0".
Error messages are detailed in here.
Shortcuts for keyboard are detailed in here.

Extensions cannot be used

Extensions such as Kinect for Small Basic and LitDev cannot be used.

Initial value of variable

The initial value of the variable is "". But reference to the variable without initializing causes compile error in SBD, while no error in SBO.

Array initialization

In SBD, Not = "False = True; True = False;" could initialize the array Not, but in SBO, the variable Not simply contains the above string.

Specifying transparent color

In Small Basic v1.2, the alpha value for opacity was specified as "#aarrggbb", but in SBO v1.0 it becomes "#rrggbbaa".

Features not implemented

The following functions cannot be implemented in SBO (online). Writing in code will result in a syntax error of The library member'ObjXXX.MbrXXX' cannot be used in the online editor. Please download the desktop editor to use it..

File.AppendContents()
File.CopyFile()
File.CreateDirectory()
File.DeleteFile()
File.DeleteDirectory()
File.GetDirectories()
File.GetFiles()
File.GetTemporaryFilePath()
File.InsertLine()
File.LastError
File.ReadContents()
File.ReadLine()
File.WriteContents()
File.WriteLine()
ImageList.LoadImage()

The following features are not yet implemented in SBO v1.0. I can't press the button.

Publish
Import

The following features are not yet implemented in SBO v1.0. Writing in code results in a syntax error of The library member'ObjXXX.MbrXXX' was available in older versions only, and has not been made available to this version yet..

Desktop.Height
Desktop.SetWallPaper()
Desktop.Width
Dictionary.GetDefinition()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToFrench()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToGerman()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToItalian()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToJapanese()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToKorean()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToSimplifiedChinese()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionEnglishToTraditionalChinese()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionFrenchToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionGermanToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionItalianToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionJapaneseToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionKoreanToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionSimplifiedChineseToEnglish()
Dictionary.GetDefinitionTraditionalChineseToEnglish()
File.GetSettingsFilePath()
File.ReadLine()
File.WriteLine()
Flickr.GetPictureOfMoment()
Flickr.GetRandomPicture()
Dictionary.GetDefinition()
GraphicsWindow.CanResize
GraphicsWindow.Left
GraphicsWindow.Title
GraphicsWindow.Top
Program.ArgumentCount
Program.Directory
Program.GetArgument()
TextWindow.CursorLeft
TextWindow.CursorTop
TextWindow.Left
TextWindow.Pause()
TextWindow.Title
TextWindow.Top

Fonts

SBO has only Arial (Helvetica), Consolas, Courier New (Courier), Roboto and Times New Roman (Times). Details are described here.

Read-only GraphicsWindow size

The following properties are now read-only in SBO v1.0. Attempting to assign a value results in a syntax error Property'ObjXXX.PrpXXX' cannot be assigned to. It is ready only..

GraphicsWindow.Width
GraphicsWindow.Height

Shapes size

When I made a square with Shapes.AddRectangle (100, 100), it was 100 x 100 pixels in size, including the thickness of the pen. On the other hand, when it was made with GraphicsWindow.DrawRectangle (10, 10, 100, 100), it was larger by the thickness of the pen. In SBO, the latter is unified, and if the pen thickness is 2 pixels, both will draw a square of 102 x 102 pixels.

Turtle design

The design of the turtle has changed. Especially the size has increased.

Turtle trails

The turtle trails are the same as Shapes in SBD, and the one created later was displayed in the foreground, but in SBO, the turtle trails are always in front of Shapes.

New programming style

Based on the above changes, I would like to explain the points about programming in the new Small Basic.

Make your own title

Neither GraphicsWindow.Title nor TextWindow.Title can be changed, so if you want to display the title, use Shapes.AddText, TextWindow.WriteLine, etc. to display it in the window.

Sample program XMC184-3 below has own title.

Ingenuity that does not depend on window size

There is a concept of responsive design so that the homepage can support devices of various sizes. Since SBO cannot specify GraphicsWindow.Width or GraphicsWindow.Height and is affected by the window size of the browser, it is a good idea to adopt the idea of responsive design. Specifically, it monitors GraphicsWindow.Width and GraphicsWindow.Height so that it will be repositioned on the screen when it changes.

Following program CVF012 will run in both SBO and SBD.

Conclusion

This time, as far as I know, I wrote about the changes in SBO and new programming styles based on it, but I will continue testing SBO and write a lot of programs for SBO from now on, so I will update this article as needed. Thanks.

Get Ready to TechNet Gallery Retirement

NonkiTakahashi — Sun, 10 May 2020 04:05:26 GMT

There are many Small Basic resources in the TechNet Gallery. You can see them with this link.

This is my sample backup from the TechNet Gallery to my GitHub repository https://nonkit.github.io/SBResources/.

Call to Action

Following instructions are in Microsoft Docs Team Blog.

If you want to continue supporting your submission(s) to the TechNet Gallery, you should migrate those to a GitHub project if it is a tool, script, or utility that has source code available.

If the entry is technical documentation or a guide, you should re-host it on a website with an email or social media link readers can reach you at.

Schedule

You can find following announcement in the same blog above.

We plan to retire the TechNet Gallery in June 2020, and will update this blog post with an exact date once available.

Additional Resources

TechNet Gallery tagged with Small Basic
An Update on the MSDN and TechNet Migration to docs.microsoft.com (Microsoft Docs Teams Blog)
TechNet Gallery Retirement (Microsoft Docs Team Blog)

Ladder Problem by Georges Lemaître - Small Basic Featured Thread

NonkiTakahashi — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 04:29:18 GMT

Today I'd like to introduce a thread "Georges Lemaitre and one of his favorite problems for his new students at university" posted by Eddy Abts.

Georges Lemaitre had his accommodation just below mine at the university. He had calculated and developed the theory of the expansion of the universe on a Moon-Hopkins mechanical calculator. A similar calculator is still at the university of Namur in Belgium. The majority of people (even wikipedia) only remember the name of one of his dementors who said, it’s like there was a big bang ... He was a catholic priest and he told us he could talk about experience and work of the past, but that we young people could not predict the future. Often the very actual moment seemed simple and as an example he asked us to calculate a small problem. We only had some slide rules, logarithm books, and paper and a pencil. We had a week to solve this nightmare. A decade later I won a small HP25 calculator with 50 program steps in an HP competition, solving this problem. An unpayable machine for me at that time proving the power of the first handhelp calculators bringing computers inside our homes. With the power of small basic today I present this problem to you.

You just need to calculate the distance between the wall and a ladder so that the ladder touches the palette and the wall at the top. As an example, the length of the ladder is 5 meters and the palette of bricks 1.5 m in height and 1.2 m in width.

Some people already tackled this problem with their own approaches. I felt this problem is very interesting. Can you find your answer with or without Small Basic?

Thank you Eddy Abts to share this problem.

Molecular Challenge - Small Basic Featured Thread

NonkiTakahashi — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 01:38:39 GMT

Following two thread are creating many screen shots of molecules.

I'd like to introduce some of them here. Today's featured molecule is methane.

NZQ605 by Thaelmann-Pioniere

XVH564-0 by Tryhest

listed here by WhTurner33

TNJ697-1 by Nonki

Can you find following molecules in these threads?

H2O
H2O2
HCHO
HC(O)OCH3
HCl
CH4
CH3OH
C2H5OH
C3H4
C6H6
C6H4(CO)2O
C10H8
CO2
CCl4
CCl3F
O3
(NH2)2CO
SiF4

Small Basic - Flags Update

NonkiTakahashi — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 11:52:33 GMT

At first I'll show you two programs that I wrote for Tokyo 2020 Games.

Tokyo 2020 Games Flag TBG303

Paralymic Flag CJD102-0

Then I'll update my old blog Flags in Small Basic that introduced about a forum thread project: state banner.

Flag of Kazakhstan LSL357 by Nonki (note that very slow)

(Bulgaria from) 13 states SZR216-0 by Tryhest

(Gabon from) 87 states GSJ434 by Tryhest

Flag of Croatia KLT327 by Tryhest

Flag of Canada KTK632-0 by Nonki

(Denmark from) animated flags BKS854 by Tryhest

Flag of China TFD171 by Nonki

Flag of Korea TWD491 by Nonki

Flag of United Kingdom BGR254 by Nonki

Flag of Greece WZM647 by Nonki

Flag of Germany XFT584 by Nonki

Flag of the Netherlands VNF823 by Nonki

Flag of Finland DVC900 by Nonki

At last, I report you that some of programs such like 185 state flags (ZJH367 by Tryhest) no longer work well. I think this may be because of security issue while loading the internet files. This issue will be fixed in SBO 1.0 or later.

Let's cheer for olympians and paralympians with Small Basic programs. Thanks.

Other Resources

project: state banner (forum)

Calendar using LitDev Extension - Small Basic Featured Program

NonkiTakahashi — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 08:53:59 GMT

Today's program is Calendar DBV633 written by Infrid. This program is using LitDev Extension to use combo boxes and to show the second window.

I rewrote this program as DBV633-0 to show the calendar in English. Thank you Infrid for sharing your program!

Other Resources

Challenge of the Month - January 2018 (forum)

NEW UPDATES: Small Basic Website 2.2 & Small Basic Online 1.0

Ed Price — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 20:53:17 GMT

We're following up to our previous announcements about Small Basic Website and SBO:

We haven't been blogging enough about what's going on, so let's see if we can change that!

Our progress continues! From 2019's efforts, we made some updates!

Big thanks to our 2019 Hackathon website team: Casey Schaertl, Peter Durham, Ian Johnson, Andrew Cook, Debbie Chang, Ken O. Bonn, Angela Vu, Maira Wenzel, Austin Suarez, Devagnanam Jayaseelan, Liz Bander, and Duncan Chalmers.

Small Basic Website 2.2 is a set of improvements from our 2019 Hackathon efforts, including the release of Small Basic Online 1.0.

Here is SB Website 2.2:

What's New - SB Website 2.2:

Home Page:
1. Updated Design: Our design is simplified, without the rotating banner. The color/brand is more consistent now with green. Our Download and Online buttons are a little easier on the eyes.
2. Social Buttons: Our social sites are now more prominently featured as circular buttons on the right pane, at the top.
3. Announcements: We now have automatic, dynamic links featuring our posts on this blog! This way, you can see what's the latest each time you land on the SmallBasic.com website! That's on the right pane.
4. Forum Posts: We also have the latest forum posts automatically featured on the home page, under the Announcements (in the right pane). This shows what's hopping in the Small Basic community!
General:
1. Open Source on GitHub: That's right! Thanks to Casey and team, our website is now over on GitHub: https://github.com/sb/SmallBasicWebsite. You can file issues, track progress, and even make fixes!
Tutorials:
1. Coding Curriculum: This is our newest content set. It's intended to be used for Coding Clubs at schools, but you can use if for all classes or for self-study.
2. Tutorials: Listed at the bottom, these our our latest Workshop Tutorials!
Resource s:
1. New Page: This is a new page listing the myriad of other helpful sources we have for you! We simply had to combine it all, or we'd have another 30 tabs at the top!
2. Comprehensive Tutorial: The old tutorial is still there and was visually improved for this release: Comprehensive Tutorial.
3. Reference Docs: Check out our latest tweak to the Reference Docs.
4. Wiki: I just wanted to highlight this ever-expanding source of great community content: Small Basic Wiki Portal.
5. Small Basic on Other Platforms: This box on the far right helps show you all the great things going on with Small Basic extensions!
6. Featured Programs: The featured programs were moved onto this page, as the bottom row. And now they dynamically pull our latest featured programs from our blog! This means you can regularly find refreshed content here!
FAQ: We made some small tweaks!
Contact: This replaced the Help page. We now include the email directly.

The Website Known Issues can be found on GitHub.

And now we move on to the editor! For SBO Online 1.0, big thanks to Omar Tawfik, Hannah Smiltneek, Amrit Ranjan, Alex Null, Allison Inman, Tina Chen, Pieter Benjamin, Casey Schaertl, Nonki, Liz Bander, Oz Jerry, Joe 3K, Jacqueline Pain, Lucjia, and Estberg.

What's New - SB Online 1.0:

Check it out here. Features #1 and #7 are parity with SB Desktop, replacing the functionality of the Dynamic Help Window. Feature #8 (saving and opening files) is a parity feature with SBD. Features #1 (the exploring aspect), #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #10, and #11 are all improvements over SB Desktop! These features will debut on desktop with the SB Desktop 2.0 release.

1. Libraries Pane: Oh, what a pane! You can now navigate the Libraries Pane to learn about our library of objects! As you explore each object and method, you'll get more familiar with the Visual Studio IDE and UI structure.

2. Debug Mode: Teachers have asked for it! And now they get it! The new Small Basic Debugger is here, and it's small and basic! Click the Debug button and then you can move through each line of code and see what it does, so that you can make sure the code is doing what you expect it to!

3. Updated Sample Program: Our sample program has a little more to it now, where it reads some user input. The sample program is what appears by default, when you open up SB Online:

4. New Icon Designs: Our icons got a new modern design pass! They still capture the original goals of icons that are simple and fun, but now they are also sleek, clean, and flat. Something fun for kids but usable for adults. They feel even simpler than ever!

5. Advanced Error Handling: Small Basic now instantly and automatically notices and points out the errors (you don't have to run it first)! It puts an exclamation point icon on all the lines that contain errors! You can click the Error pane on the bottom for more information, and click each error message to go right to the specific error. And the error messages are friendlier and clearer than ever! In addition, you can't run the program with errors! The Run button gets grayed out, and when you hover over the button, it tells you how many errors you have!

6. Auto Filling: When writing an operation, such as Turtle.Move(), Small Basic now automatically adds in the parentheses, fills in the info in the middle with the word "data" and highlights it, so you can type to replace it! Likewise, when you type a quote in (for a property or a string in an operation), Small Basic automatically adds the end quote for you!

7. Hover Hints: Hover over an object or method to get a description.

8. Save & Open: This is an improvement over SBO 0.91 and a step toward parity with SB Desktop! You can now save your files locally. And...

9. TXT File Format: We're introducing the idea of saving and loading TXT files instead of SB files. This makes file sharing, edits, and uploads easier, especially when you switch back and forth between using SB Online and SB Desktop. (Note that SB Desktop won't support this on that end until the release of Small Basic 2.)

10. Open Source on GitHub: Just like the website, Small Basic Online 1.0 is all open source and available on GitHub!

11. Double Display: Continuing the feature from SBO 0.91, the Graphics Window and Text Window can be seen simultaneously.

Known Issues:

Import and Publish: These features aren't working yet. We plan to add them in the next release, Small Basic Online 1.1. If you need them in an online browser, please try Small Basic Online 0.91 here: http://aka.ms/SBOnline/0.91
Load Times: The time it takes to load the browser can sometimes take too long. We're looking into improving this.
Tutorials & Documentation Links: Currently the Tutorials and Documentation links (in the upper right corner) are broken. We'll get those fixed.

For all the SBO Known Issues, see the GitHub Issues. And now let's revisit the...

Release Pipeline

We have many steps in the future for Small Basic Online (and Small Basic Desktop):

Release Small Basic Online 0.9. Done! See the announcement here .
Release Small Basic Online 0.91 (SBO 0.91). Done! This shipped with our release of the Small Basic Website 2.1. (See the announcement here.)
Release SB Website 2.2 and SB Online 1.0! Done! That's this blog post!
Release Small Basic Desktop 1.3.
- It has the bug fixes found in the Windows App Store mobile release, 3 new languages, and extra coding help in the interface!
Release Small Basic Online 1.1.
- We plan to get Import and Publish working and fix some bugs. We're building toward parity with SB Desktop.
Release Small Basic Online 1.2-1.9
- I expect continual parity improvements, as we move SBO features closer to what's available in Small Basic Desktop (SBD). We're also fixing the GitHub Issues.
- We'll likely be releasing new versions of the website as we go, as well.
- I expect to see some features released in SBO that we hoped to get in SBD, but were never able to. For example, SBO 1.0 includes the new Debug Mode, Advanced Error Handling, Auto Filling, Hover Hints, and TXT File Format. All those are improvements that will eventually make their way into Small Basic Desktop (with the release of SB 2).
- This is where we'd seek to get the Extensions, Graduate, and "Build an EXE File" feature sets to work out. As well as translating the English into our 22 other languages currently supported by SB Desktop!
- We would be moving toward building a Desktop version in the exact same open source repository.
Release Small Basic 2:
- The vision would then come into fruition, as we release both SBO 2 and SBD 2 at the same time, from the same source code.
- Obviously, we'd need to include the Extensions, Graduate, and "Build EXE Files" feature sets for this to work out (those are the tougher features to get for Desktop parity).
- I'd also expect to find further features we wanted in SBD, like in-app tutorials and an Extension Manager. And if they don't make it into SB 2, I'd expect them to be coming on the horizon...
Release Small Basic 2.1+
- Once we had a combined release, I'd hope to see an emphasis on in-app tutorials, extensions (like Minecraft), and more!
- This also might be where we see the in-app tutorials and the Extension Manager get released.
- I'd love to see a more robust Graduate feature set (such as to export into JavaScript, as an option).
- We'd also drive toward mobile apps, built from the same repo!

That's the vision. There is no timeline, just a roadmap. The more we work together (with the community), the faster we get there.

That's Small and Basically it!

- Ninja Ed

Small Basic Blog articles

The 17th Anniversary of Small Basic

The 16th Anniversary of Small Basic

15th Anniversery of Small Basic

LitDev website reinstated

14th Anniversary of Small Basic

See Also

Small Basic for VS Code

A Tool for LINE Stickers

13th Anniversary of Small Basic

See Also

How Your Program Works

Play with micro:bit and Small Basic

See Also

Small Basic + micro:bit

Instructions

Code

Notes

See Also

Other Resources from Jez Dean (website is down now)

Small Basic Forum Migrated to Small Basic on Q&A

Small Basic 12th Anniversary

See Also

Small Basic Online - What's New

Fixed issues 2020 in SBO

Changes in SBO

New features

Extensions cannot be used

Initial value of variable

Array initialization

Specifying transparent color

Features not implemented

Fonts

Read-only GraphicsWindow size

Shapes size

Turtle design

Turtle trails

New programming style

Make your own title

Ingenuity that does not depend on window size

Conclusion

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Ladder Problem by Georges Lemaître - Small Basic Featured Thread

Molecular Challenge - Small Basic Featured Thread

Small Basic - Flags Update

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Other Resources

Calendar using LitDev Extension - Small Basic Featured Program

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