Anyone still interested in Forward Pass?

[sesummers]

After starting my latest PPC project with the latest version of NSBasic, I ended up doing the same thing I did with the last project I started in the previous version of NSBasic. I converted it back over to Forward Pass.

I WANT to like NSB- I really do. But I can't get past the fact that A) it's full of bugs, and B) the documentation stinks. It's poorly organized, incomplete, and hard to use. Combined with the bugs that leave me never sure whether my problem is a misunderstanding due to poor documentation or a bug due to poor implementation, I end up giving up.

I keep coming back to the realization that Forward Pass is practically PERFECT as a tool for casual hobby programmers to create simple apps for their Pocket PCs. The learning curve is very small compared to eVC, eVB, C#, VB.Net, or any of the rest of the choices.

The problem is that it's abandoned. I'm really hoping that the forward pass people could be persuaded to open-source the thing, since they're clearly not interested in marketing development tools anymore. I'd be willing to write a better IDE for it on the PC side if they did- maybe even with a PC side form creator.

Anyone else interested enough to help convince them?

[stevelam]

Is there a website for it? If there is enough interest they are bound to take notice!

[sesummers]

There's no website I can find. In fact, the discussion forum on Yahoo groups seems to be completely closed.

I think MS is making a big mistake by requiring Visual Studio to program these things, but apparently, nobody seems to care.

[stevelam]

There's no website I can find. In fact, the discussion forum on Yahoo groups seems to be completely closed.

I think MS is making a big mistake by requiring Visual Studio to program these things, but apparently, nobody seems to care.

I have just signed up to the VS2005 beta program. Its worth a look here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/getthebetas/).

[sesummers]

[I have just signed up to the VS2005 beta program. Its worth a look here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/getthebetas/). You're missing my point. I want to be able to write useful, simple little programs for my pocket pc, without spending a lot of money, and investing months worth of man-hours of my "leasure" time learning the dot net compact framework, and a complex new programming environment, and spending over a thousand bucks for the privelege.

Forward Pass is easy, has a shallow learning curve, and makes the process fun. And it was cheap ($40) even before they started giving it away for free. Visual Studio with C# and the Windows Mobile API is hard, has an enormous learning curve, and is NOT my idea of fun- it's a lot more like my idea of WORK. There's no way I'm going to spend way more money than I spent on my COMPUTER to buy the software just so I can work just as hard in the evenings as I work during the day (but for no money!) learning how to use it.

I'm not saying VS and the dot net framework aren't appropriate tools for commercial application writing for PPCs- I'm saying that there's a big hole in the low end with nothing filling it. PCs with GW Basic helped a lot of people have fun learning to program. Pocket PCs need something like Forward Pass for the same reason.

Maybe nobody else feels the same way I do. Maybe you all enjoy a challenge so much that you relish downloading VS2005 beta (and later having to buy it) so you can spend hundreds of hours getting up to speed enough to write anything remotely useful. Personally, I much more enjoy being able to spend a few evenings writing things like a spelling practice program for my kids, that says the words out loud and then checks if they type them in correctly.

Isn't there anyone else out there who wants SOMETHING that lets us do stuff like this? For under $50? In an under 5MB download, including documentation?

[stevelam]

[I have just signed up to the VS2005 beta program. Its worth a look here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/getthebetas/). You're missing my point. I want to be able to write useful, simple little programs for my pocket pc, without spending a lot of money, and investing months worth of man-hours of my "leasure" time learning the dot net compact framework, and a complex new programming environment, and spending over a thousand bucks for the privelege.

Forward Pass is easy, has a shallow learning curve, and makes the process fun. And it was cheap ($40) even before they started giving it away for free. Visual Studio with C# and the Windows Mobile API is hard, has an enormous learning curve, and is NOT my idea of fun- it's a lot more like my idea of WORK. There's no way I'm going to spend way more money than I spent on my COMPUTER to buy the software just so I can work just as hard in the evenings as I work during the day (but for no money!) learning how to use it.

I'm not saying VS and the dot net framework aren't appropriate tools for commercial application writing for PPCs- I'm saying that there's a big hole in the low end with nothing filling it. PCs with GW Basic helped a lot of people have fun learning to program. Pocket PCs need something like Forward Pass for the same reason.

Maybe nobody else feels the same way I do. Maybe you all enjoy a challenge so much that you relish downloading VS2005 beta (and later having to buy it) so you can spend hundreds of hours getting up to speed enough to write anything remotely useful. Personally, I much more enjoy being able to spend a few evenings writing things like a spelling practice program for my kids, that says the words out loud and then checks if they type them in correctly.

Isn't there anyone else out there who wants SOMETHING that lets us do stuff like this? For under $50? In an under 5MB download, including documentation?

I see what you mean but in the absance of anything better it looks like I am going to have to learn it. Something is better than nothing surley.

[splat]

You're missing my point. I want to be able to write useful, simple little programs for my pocket pc, without spending a lot of money, and investing months worth of man-hours of my "leasure" time learning the dot net compact framework, and a complex new programming environment, and spending over a thousand bucks for the privelege.


You might try Waba (www.wabasoft.com) or Superwaba (www.superwaba.com).

Both are Java like and to my understanding whip up apps right on your PPC. And both have active communities - although Superwaba is the more supported version as I understand where waba was more the proof-of-concept.

If you are brave to can try to track down Pocket C from Orbworks.

They still put out a palm version but I think they have dumped the PPC version becuase of lack of interest. Shame that. The Palm version is quite nice.

A final option would be the find the newest palm emulator (whose name escapes me at this hour) and run either Hotpaw Basic (http://www.hotpaw.com/rhn/hotpaw/) or Pocket C (www.orbworks.com) using that.

But if you can get the Forward Pass guys back in business I'd be right behind you there...

[BarryB]

I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to express my agreement with the OP.

Forward Pass was great. I made several nice little applications for my own purposes. I wish it would still work with WM 2003.

It would be nice to have something like that again.

[sriram_2001]

I know this is a *really* old thread - but I want to turn this around and ask...what would it take to make Visual Studio 'fun' to play around with? For example, I write a lot of toy applications for fun - and though I work on the team which creates these things, I'm sure I would have had equal fun if I had done it outside!

Suggestions? My team owns this stuff :-)

[shaxs]

Okay okay, I know this is SUPER old, but.. I jsut bought the rights to some pocket pc software made in forward pass. I am having trouble getting it open to edit:

I install forward pass, copy the .fpa file to my pocket pc, open the fpa file in forward pass on the pocket pc, correct? When I do that, I get an error saying ‘Cannot Open VBScipt’. Can you let me know if I am doing something wrong?

I can get the app to open on a wm 5 ppc. The script looks jacked up, but seems to work. But, the forward pass desktop client, which I beleive is what builds the cab file, wont connect to the wm 5 ppc.

I tried installing forward pass on a wm 2003 device. I cant open the file with the error above. I put active sync 3.7 on my laptop thinking maybe 4.1 was corrupting the file. Any one have any ideas?

[Francesco]

I started computer programming many many years ago in BASIC using a MAC , you know..

10 ........
20 ........
30 ........

After many years a jumped back in the PC programming world becouse I recently boght a pocket pc for my job. using it I realized it would be useful to wright custom programs for personal needs.
So surfing the web I recently discovered FORWARD PASS, and after reading a lot I started using it in VBscript mode (it is easier than Jscript , I think !).
Just to learn the basics I "assembled" a simple calculator program. It worked fine till.... I added a 2nd FORM which is "called in" by the Clerar Button. It was still O.K. but the caption on the buttons appeared jagged and magnified (as I know I cannot post images from my PC).
Any clue to correct the problem, why this is happening ?


T.I.A. and sorry for my english