Getting Started
Updated: Jan 12, 2012

HotBasic Setup
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Go to the www.hotbasic.org Downloads page.  Download and unpack HotBasic Setup
(hbsetup.zip), preferably in the directory you would like to use as your main
HotBasic directory. This directory should not have space characters embedded
in its pathname. E.g., c:\Program Files is not good; c:\hotbasic or c:\hot or
c:\hb are good. HotBasic can be installed on any hard drive (c:, d:, etc) and
does not alter your computer Registry or Environment variables.

A firewall needs to be configured to allow hbsetup access to the internet so
it can download, unpack and thereby install various components. hbsetup needs
to have outgoing tcp/ip internet access enabled. hbsetup will download and
install two child programs -- hotsauce.exe to download the compiler itself
and hbmanual.exe to update the Manual in the \doc sub-directory. Hence, both
hotsause and hbmanual will also need to have outgoing internet access in
firewall configuration.

Run hbsetup and upon successful installation, click Finish to launch HotIDE
to compile and run your first program -- hello.bas.  With HotIDE, you can then
explore the \inc and \tutorial directories to find numerous working code
examples. As you load and run each demo program, you can see the source code
in the HotIDE window and what that code does in the compiled program's window.

The \tools sub-directory has other goodies, depending on your install
selections.

hbsetup.txt contains more information about hbsetup.  In particular, you can
rerun hbsetup to automate updates of component files.

hb.bat
~~~~~~
HotIDE makes hb.bat obsolete to some degree. However, hb.bat may be edited
with notepad to include the HotBasic directory you are using.  Once hb.bat
is correct, you can copy it to any drive/directory where your .bas projects
are located.  .bas files can be put in the HB directory and compile, also.

Often, it is convenient to have files associated with each project in their
own directory.  Then in that directory, if you want to compile from the 
command prompt, you can type "hb myprog".  Notice that the compiler assumes
the default program file extension of .bas if none is specified, as in the
example above.

Copyright 2005-2012 James J Keene PhD
Original Publication: Apr 16, 2005