[Coco] Re: Urbane pre-processor

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

Urbane is a CoCo 2 DECB disk Program at present. As the task is just text
processing, it can be done in any language on any platform. Urbane is
planned to continue having a CoCo 2 disk version so it can be run on any
CoCo, not necessarily the targeted CoCo.

Roger Taylor has shown an interest in adding support for Urbane in his great
IDE project.

So, when I have the time (Now Taxes, was Olympics), I will convert Urbane to
a PC based basic which will be easier for him to support than trying to run
Urbane on a CoCo emulator, even though it runs on any CoCo emulator. (Still
waiting for conformation on many emulators, but I really except no
problems.)

I am using JV's CoCo 2 emulator as it is sufficient to do the work.

As for an editor, I use the ConTex, Notepad++  and the Crimson Editors on
Windows. I also used at times Lotus Word Pro and other editors. I also use
other tools, "RemoteKeys", "AWK" to name a few.

The important point being, that these are all *Screen* *Editors*. The
ConTex, Notepad++ and Crimson editors all provide syntax coloring and I
prepared a special DECB / Urbane syntax file for ConTex which was used for
preparing the colored listings. This feature was planned for Urbane but
dropped when I discovered that using Contex was easy and it was already
done.

I am using the term "Run Version" to describe the DECB resulting program
instead of "executable program" as DECB must be used and it is an
interpreter.

----------------------------------------------------

Urbane programs can be written using any screen editor. Some word processors
may muck up the editing and upon request I will try and reduce these
problems.

TW128, which runs on a CoCo 3 is one candidate for those who wish to use
CoCo's only. OS-9 has several  screen editors. Urbane could be converted to
Basic09 and the resulting "Run Version", depending on the target CoCo's
requirements, run using RGB Basic under OS-9.

I assume that there is some language on any platform that Urbane can be
converted to. To me, it appears to be better to run Urbane on the platform
that has the screen editor you prefer to use.

So, no dependence on any platform except for the Targeted CoCo which can be
any CoCo or emulator where DECB runs.

Stephen H. Fischer


farna at att.net wrote:
> So Urbane needs to run on a PC, then the resulting executable transferred
> to a CoCo, or does the whole thing run on a CoCo? My understanding, from
> reading here on the list, is that you write your program in Urbane, and
> can use long variable and line label names, then Urbane transforms your
> source code into an executable program. Do you use any old word
> processor/editor to write the code, or a specific Urbane editor?
>
> Is the resulting program in DECB or machine code? That's assuming I'm
> correct.
>
> --
> Frank Swygert