Adam,

On Sun Aug 22 14:34:13 2004 Adam Bell wrote:

>... the only Basic programs I've ever written were on a 
>RadioShack TRS 100 ..... but that was all pre-OS X.

I started on a TRS-80 myself with their Level I Basic. There are light years
of difference in that Basic and FutureBasic 4. Among other things
Level I ran with an interpreter not a compiler and that Basic was
not a structured language as is FutureBasic.

>I've been looking without success for a "Getting Started" document to 
>read about Basic and FutureBasic...
>
>Q1: Is there a straightforward manual on how to write a program in FB?

I gather from what you've said here that you have not yet purchased
FutureBasic. If you do and you launch the editor you will discover
under the Help menu some ten documents to help you with FB. Among
these is one titled, "Learning to Program with FB." This will reacquaint
you with the basic Basic you may have forgotten.

In addition there is a spiral bound manual titled "Switching to FutureBasic,"
which fills in a few of the gaps between elementary Basic and some of the
more sophisticated nuances of FutureBasic 4 with its emphasis on Carbon/
Appearance compliant code.

This last document has a tutorial on constructing a complete database ap-
plication from scratch.

The last source I am going to suggest is probably out of print, but if you
can find it, it may fill in some of the gaps in between, i.e., "FutureBasic 
II
Handbook". A lot of the material is outdated, but there are useful program-
ming tips nevertheless. It's by Staz Software.

I realize I have not answered all your questions, but I hope this is a start.

My last piece of advice is be patient. It will take some digging to get 
caught
up, but this latest version, FB4, is the best programming environment I've
ever seen.....It's worth the trip!

Bruce Gottshall

P.S.: E-mail me if you have any questions. My address is above.

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