Update 2.6 produces false positive viruscheck

The September 2021 update version 2.6 causes problems with some virus scanners like F-Secure, Secure Point, and some others. The file that causes the problem is GfaWin23.Ocx version 2.39, the GFA-BASIC runtime. After investigating the problem I’m sure the scanners report a false positive. My PC and the files on it do not contain a virus. The GfaWin23.Ocx file can be used without any problems, the GFA-BASIC 32 installer will not install a virus.

GfaWin23.Ocx version 2.39 is a patched 2.38, which is not trapped by any virus scanner according to VirusTotal. To my surprise, patching (changing) only one byte in the binary already causes 5 out of 66 online virus scanners to complain. This is the first time patching causes problems. I patched the GfaWin32.exe as well, and this file does not raise any problems.
I have contacted the vendors of the virus scanners to notify them of the false positive and hope they will add it to their exception list. Until then I will no longer release a patched GfaWin23.Ocx.

Use version 2.38 instead, reinstall
As a GFA-BASIC 32 developer you can ignore the virus scanner’s report, but when you release your software with the GfaWin23.Ocx runtime your customers face the same false positive virus reports. Therefor, I advise you to restore the previous version (2.38) of GfaWin23.Ocx, which does not give any problems.

The download page now contains installer version 2.6a, which contains version 2.38 of the runtime. Please download 2.6a and reinstall GFA-BASIC 32 version 2.6.

Apply the runtime bug fixes yourself 
Version 2.39 did fix a number of bugs, you now must do without. However, you can apply those fixes yourself while running your program. There are 4 bugs that need to be fixed:

• Alert box displays wrong background color.
• The mouse pointer over Ocx controls is not the control’s default mouse, but the Form’s mouse pointer. Especially, the TextBox Ocx shows a constantly flipping mouse pointer (arrow <–> I-beam).
• The FileName property after using CommDlg.ShowFolders returns a string with a terminating null character.
• The RichEdit Ocx property set CharFormat causes an exception when the string contains a 9.

You can apply all fixes or only the ones your program requires. The following code must be inserted at the beginning of your code (it requires the gfawinx.lg32 library):

'
' Patches for GfaWin23.Ocx 2.38 - 13-Sep-2021 (SH)
' Bug fixes to apply on the fly in a program.
' Note - Patches are only applied once: on first RUN only.
'
$Library "gfawinx"

If Round(DllVersion * 100) == 238       ' Only apply to 2.38

  ' Fix: Alert box background color
  If Peek($1800193C) != 6 Then PokeProcess1 $1800193C, $06

  ' Fix: Get FileName after CommDlg.ShowFolder
  If Peek($1801BCEF) != $4A Then PokeProcess $1801BCEF, Chr($4A, $89, $06, $89, $56, $10)

  ' Fix: MousePointer in Ocx Controls to default mouse
  If Peek($18013B5D) != $5C Then PokeProcess1 $18013B5D, $5C

  ' Fix: Rtf.CharFormat set fails if string contains a 9
  If Peek($1805BA4D) != $7F Then PokeProcess1 $1805BA4D, $7F

EndIf

When GfaWin23.Ocx keeps being rejected by virus scanners, I will add these and possible new bug patches to a single routine in gfawinx.lg32.

Update 2.6–September 2021

Besides the obvious bug fixes, the update version 2.6 comes with some new features. In short, de editor can be switched to dark mode, the UI of the IDE has a new look, projects can be saved to a version history and libraries have been updated.

Bug Fixes
If possible, all known bugs have been fixed. This is true for the IDE, the CHM help, as well as for the runtime GfaWin23.ocx. The CHM Help is updated with the latest new commands and functions. Fixed is the bug where the CHM Help-viewer crashed when typing in the edit-field of the Index tab.
There were three known bugs in the runtime; the Alert box didn’t use the correct colors all the time, the FileName property after using ShowFolders didn’t provide the folder’s name correctly, and the mouse pointer didn’t display correctly over the TextBox Ocx. These issues have been fixed in the updated runtime version 2.39.

The libraries gfawinx.lg32 and direct2d.lg32
The extension library gfawinx contains some new functions and commands:

• SplitPath parses a given path specification like C’s _splitpath().
• DirExist checks for the existence of a path (UNC included) and does a much better job than GetAttr.
• CharW returns a wide character string from a given address.
• The string functions FindFirstOf and FindLastOf return the first or last position of any of the characters from a given set.
• The LoadRichEdit50W function modifies the runtime to use msftedit.dll with the rich edit window class RichEdit50W (rather than the current RichEdit20A class from RichEd20.dll). See the updated CHM helpfile for more information.
• The high-resolution timer object TimerQ has been re-developed, because Windows 10 suddenly stopped supporting the older implementation.

The direct2d library version 1.13 updates only a few functions;

• D2GetRT can create a rendertarget for a memory DC. Syntax:
  Set memdcRT = D2GetRT(hdc, width, height)
• D2Bitmap can load an image without ignoring the alpha channel.

More advanced Direct 2D features are under development.

UI changes to the IDE
The IDE has a smoother user-interface and new (a bit larger) images for toolbar, auto-complete, and list-boxes. In addition, the editor can be switched to a dark mode for those that appreciate light-on-dark editing.

The default dark mode syntax colors are chosen from a palette of colors that display well on a dark background, for more color suggestions see Colormind - Generate dashboard template colors. The dark background isn’t pure black, but it’s RGB color value is $121212. More information on the editor’s colors can be found in The IDE's Color Dialog blog.

Save to History
The toolbar displays an additional button (see picture above) for the Save to (Version) History feature. The command adds the current program to a history zipfile with a descriptive name that allow you to summarize the changes and new features of that program. By regularly storing the program in the version history file, you can easily return to a previous version of the program. By default, the history file is named progname + “History.zip” and it is stored in the program’s directory. However, the Extra tab in the Properties dialog box allows you to provide a dedicated directory (another (network) drive perhaps) to save the history files in one place. After selecting the command you are presented with this dialog box (Prompt):

The dialog shows the filename and timestamp of the current file. The timestamp is the first element added to the descriptive name when the file is added to the zipfile. This makes sorting the zipfile easier. The second filename specifies the path and filename of the history file to which it is added. The edit line is used to provide a description of changes and new features of the file to store. The description starts with your Windows username, which could be necessary when multiple developers work on the same code. Because this information makes up the name of the file in the zipfile it can not include specific characters as \:/*?<>|”. To separate items use the ; or – characters. After saving you can open the zip file with the File Explorer.

$Compiler command
This new command adds the current compiler settings to the program, so you can use different compiler settings for your projects. Just type $Compiler on an empty line and the IDE inserts the compiler settings as a long integer value (in hex format) into the code line.

$Compiler 0x0008A734 ' Br:4 BrExe:1 Mul:3 Fp:3 ChkArr:1 Bswp:0 Num2Str:1 FpWait:0 FpCons:0 Trace:2

The line includes a comment specifying the compiler settings that are represented by the $Compiler value. The meaning of the abbreviations can be found in the helpfile.

Download: GFA-BASIC 32 for Windows: Download (gfabasic32.blogspot.com)

The IDE’s Color Dialog

The IDE features a custom Color Dialog box to select the foreground and background colors for Ocx controls and Forms. The Color Dialog box is also used to select the editor’s syntax colors in the GB32’s Properties dialog box. Using the Color Dialog box you can select any color you want. However, the Color Dialog box presents a custom color palette for a quick selection. In addition the dialog box displays the system colors as they are defined on your version of Windows.

The Color Dialog box
The following picture displays the Color Dialog box after selecting the ForeColor property of a Form (frm1) in the form-editor. This dialog box will also be displayed after selecting the BackColor property.

The ForeColor property shows a color value of $80000008, which means that the color is set to the system color with index 8 (COLOR_WINDOWTEXT). The ForeColor property is used as the foreground color for drawing in the client area of the form.

The Color Dialog displays the 25 system colors in the lower two rows of the dialog box and it draws a focus rectangle around the color-cell that shows the system color for COLOR_WINDOWTEXT. The large cell at bottom-right of the dialog box displays the selected color. By clicking on the large box GB32 shows the common dialog’s color dialog box. The top 4 rows display a palette of often used RGB colors to allow a quick selection of a color. The fourth row also contains 8 additional colors otherwise not found in the 4 upper rows of the dialog’s color palette.

The BackColor property defines the color used to draw the (empty) contents of the client area. By default, GFA-BASIC 32 uses the system color COLOR_BTNFACE, the system color that is used to paint the shading of the face of command buttons. However, this system color is used for more UI-elements than just the shadow of the face of a button. By using the color-value $8000000f the window background gets the default color of a dialog box, so that the GB32 form will look consistently with system dialog boxes.

Using system colors
It is a big advantage that GFA-BASIC 32 let you use system colors for the user-interface elements of the form and Ocx-controls. The system colors may change when a custom Windows theme is installed or when Microsoft changes the system colors with a new release of Windows. Whenever the system colors change, the colors of the form change accordingly, providing a consistent look with the OS.

GFA-BASIC 32 distinguishes between a pure RGB color format and a system color by setting the high-bit of the 32-bit color value (Long). When a Long value is displayed in it’s hexadecimal format the high-bit setting is shown as $80000000. Before actually applying a color GB32 tests the high-bit of the color value and selects a system color when it is set:

If rgbcol %& $80000000 Then rgbcol = SysCol(rgbcol & $FF)

An application can specify a system color in two ways:

RGBColor $80000000 + COLOR_WINDOWFRAME
RGBColor SysCol(COLOR_WINDOWTEXT)

The first statement sets the foreground color to a system color value. The second statement converts the system color to an RGB-value beforehand. Both statements will eventually use the RGB color that belongs to the system’s color element COLOR_WINDOWTEXT. The RGB color value for any of the display elements is obtained using the GB32’s function SysCol or the API function GetSysColor(). Each aspect of the display has its own COLOR_* constant that is used as an index in these functions. These constants are built into GFA-BASIC 32. For more information see the SysCol function in the helpfile. It explains which constant represents what user-interface element. When you hoover over the system colors in the IDE Color Dialog box it shows a short description of the display element it represents.

The Editor colors
The Editor tab in the Properties dialog box (Extra | Properties) displays the same Color Dialog box to select the syntax colors.

This picture is taken after clicking the BackColor button. It shows the selected color for the background of the “Changed/Empty” syntax (ie. the background color of empty lines and the line that is being edited). By default, the background color for all syntax elements is set to system color COLOR_WINDOW ($80000005). The foreground colors of the syntax elements are custom RGB values. By keeping the background color to a system color, the GFA-BASIC 32’s editor will adapt to the new COLOR_WINDOW color if a theme is installed.