What is new in Ring 1.13?

In this chapter we will learn about the changes and new features in Ring 1.13 release.

List of changes and new features

Ring 1.13 comes with the next features!

  • New Book by Apress

  • Ring For WebAssembly

  • Better Threads Support

  • Laser Game

  • Magic Balls Game

  • MoneyBoxes Game

  • Matching Game

  • Pairs Game

  • Word Game

  • Tetris Game

  • Escape Game

  • Hassouna Course Samples

  • Ring support in SpaceVim

  • Better RingQt

  • Better RingRayLib

  • RingStbImage Extension

  • More Low Level Functions

  • Better Organization

  • More Improvements

New Book by Apress

Apress: Beginning Ring Programming (From Novice to Professional)

URL: https://www.apress.com/gp/book/9781484258323

Ring Book by Apress

Gain a gentle introduction to the world of Ring programming with clarity as a first concern using a lot of practical examples.

What You Will Learn

  • Get started with Ring and master its data types, I/O, functions, and classes

  • Carry out structural, object-oriented, functional, declarative, natural, and meta programming in Ring

  • Use the full power of Ring to refactor program code and develop clean program architectures

  • Quickly design professional-grade video games on top of the Ring game engine

Ring for WebAssembly

Ring support distributing applications for WebAssembly (Using Qt for WebAssembly)

Othello Game

Better Threads Support

Ring 1.13 provides better support for threads

  1. Ring VM is updated to use a memory pool for each thread (Faster)

  2. More tests for RingAllegro threads functions

  3. RingLibUV is updated to be thread safe when using callback functions

Laser Game

An implementation for the Laser Game

Laser Game

Magic Balls Game

An implementation for the Magic Balls Game

Magic Balls Game

Money Boxes Game

See if you can collect the required amount of money by opening boxes!

Money Boxes Game

Matching Game

An implementation for the Matching Game

Matching Game

Pairs Game

An implementation for the Pairs Game

Pairs Game

Word Game

An implementation for the Word Game

Word Game

Tetris Game

An implementation for the Tetris Game

Features

  • New Shapes are selected in random way (Different Shape, Color & Position)

  • You can move and rotate the shapes, increase the speed.

  • Score: You get 10 points when completing a row (The game check for nested rows completion as expected)

  • The game is designed to work forever without user interaction (After Game Over, the Game restarts automatically)

Tetris Game

Escape Game

Escape from the Snake and collect the Stars to prevent it from growing!

Escape Game

Hassouna Course Samples

URL (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VIHMyrEilw&list=PLHIfW1KZRIfl6KzfLziFl650MmThnQ0jT

The course samples are added to ring/samples/UsingArabic/HassounaCourse folder

The Rockets sample

Sample from Hassouna Course

Ring support in SpaceVim

URL: https://github.com/SpaceVim/SpaceVim

Screen Shot:

Ring in SpaceVim

Better RingQt

  1. The next classes are added to RingQt

  • QAbstractAxis

  • QAbstractBarSeries

  • QAbstractSeries

  • QAreaLegendMarker

  • QAreaSeries

  • QBarCategoryAxis

  • QBarLegendMarker

  • QBarSeries

  • QBarSet

  • QBoxPlotLegendMarker

  • QBoxPlotSeries

  • QBoxSet

  • QCandlestickLegendMarker

  • QCandlestickModelMapper

  • QCandlestickSeries

  • QCandlestickSet

  • QCategoryAxis

  • QChart

  • QChartView

  • QDateTimeAxis

  • QHBarModelMapper

  • QHBoxPlotModelMapper

  • QHCandlestickModelMapper

  • QHPieModelMapper

  • QHXYModelMapper

  • QHorizontalBarSeries

  • QHorizontalPercentBarSeries

  • QHorizontalStackedBarSeries

  • QLegend

  • QLegendMarker.

  • QLineSeries

  • QLogValueAxis

  • QPercentBarSeries

  • QPieLegendMarker

  • QPieSeries

  • QPieSlice

  • QPolarChart

  • QScatterSeries

  • QSplineSeries

  • QStackedBarSeries

  • QVBarModelMapper

  • QVBoxPlotModelMapper

  • QVCandleStickModelMapper

  • QVPieModelMapper

  • QVXYModelMapper

  • QValueAxis

  • QXYLegendMarker

  • QXYSeries

  • QGraphicsScene

  • QMovie

  1. Better QtConverter application

This application is used for preparing Qt classes for the Ring Code Generator

Then using the Ring Code Generator we generate RingQt classes

The application user interface is updated for better productivity!

QtConverter

  1. RingQt for Android - Qt Project - Special folders for Ring and RingQt

  2. Using Qt 5.15.0

Better RingRayLib

  1. All functions return objects instead of pointers

  2. Support RayMath libary functions

  3. More Samples are ported from RayLib to RingRayLib

  • Scissor Test

  • Input Gestures Detection

  • Bouncing Ball

  • Rectangle Rounded

  • Draw Circle Sector

  • RayLib Logo Animation

  • First Person Maze

firstpersonmaze

  • Plane Rotations

planerotations

RingStbImage Extension

New extension support the stb_image library

Example:

# Load the library
        load "stbimage.ring"
# Image Information
        width=0 height=0 channels=0
# Ring will Free cData automatically in the end of the program
        cData = stbi_load("ring.jpg",:width,:height,:channels,STBI_rgb)
# Display the output
        ? "Size (bytes): " + len(cData)
        ? "Width : " + width
        ? "Height: " + height
        ? "Channels: " + channels

Output:

Size (bytes): 557371
Width : 563
Height: 330
Channels: 3

More Low Level Functions

The next functions are added to the Low Level functions

For more information see the Low Level Functions chapter in the documentation

setpointer(pointer,nNewAddress)
getpointer(pointer) ---> nAddress
pointer2string(pointer,nStart,nCount) ---> cString
memcpy(pDestinationPointer,cSourceString,nSize)

Better Organization

We have better organization for the project folders and source code files

  1. A folder called (Language) contains the source code and the visual source of the Compiler and the Virtual Machine

  2. The (Extensions) folder (Bindings for C/C++ libraries) - contains also the (libdepwin, android & webassembly folders)

  3. The (Libraries) folder - contains Ring libraries written in Ring itself, contains now (GuiLib & ObjectsLib) too

  4. The (Tools) folder - contains development tools - contains now (Editors, RingNotepad, FormDesigner, etc)

  5. The (Samples) folder - contains Ring samples - a lot of organization is done in this folder

More Improvements

  • More Applications

    • Towers of Hanoi

    • Questions Game

    • Money Case Game

    • Rock Paper Scissors Game

    • Lottery Game

    • Nim Game

    • Eight Queens Game

    • Typing Quiz

    • Pong 2 Game

    • Space Shooter Game

  • More Samples

    • ring/samples/Language/HelloWorld folder

    • ring/samples/Language/ChangeIsNULL folder

    • ring/samples/Language/Console/customsee.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/Numbers/decimalscount.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/EvalInScope/swap.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/EvalInScope/global.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/EvalInScope/enum.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/Endian/endian.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/VariablePointer/varptr4.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/VariablePointer/varptr5.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/DebugCode folder

    • ring/samples/Language/ClassMethods folder

    • ring/samples/Language/Lists/CheckHashTableAttribute.ring

    • ring/samples/Language/RingFileTokens folder (Ring Compiler - Scanner Output)

    • ring/samples/ProblemSolving/Fib folder

    • ring/samples/ProblemSolving/ArrayPathDest/solveArrayPathDest.ring

    • ring/samples/ProblemSolving/PegSolitaire/peg-soli.ring

    • ring/samples/General/RosettaCode/uniquecharacters.ring

    • ring/samples/General/RosettaCode/similarcharacters.ring

    • ring/samples/General/RandomLatinSquares folder

    • ring/samples/General/FactorialRecursion folder

    • ring/samples/UsingArabic/RightToLeft folder (Set Layout Direction)

    • ring/samples/UsingWebLib/Unicode folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQt/InputMask folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQt/PlayGif folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQt/TableWidget folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQt/ButtonSizeInLayout folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQt/DateTimeEditFormat folder (Date Picker Control)

    • ring/samples/UsingQML/sample10 folder (Charts Samples)

    • ring/samples/UsingQML/sample11 folder (Data Visualization Samples)

    • ring/samples/UsingQtWASM/colordialog folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQtWASM/fontdialog folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQtWASM/filedialog folder

    • ring/samples/UsingQtWASM/filecontent folder (Download/Upload Files)

    • ring/samples/UsingRayLib/more/ex4_levelsofcubes.ring

    • ring/samples/UsingOpenGL/cubeongpu/cubeongpu.ring

    • ring/samples/UsingOpenGL/cubeongpu2/cubeongpu.ring

  • Ring Notepad - Output Window - set the buffer size to 1 MB

  • Ring Notepad - View Menu - Source Code (Full Screen)

  • Ring Notepad - Keyboard shortcuts for different styles

  • Ring Notepad - Support saving files in folders contains the dot character

  • Ring Notepad - Browser Window - Set colors based on the current style

  • Ring Notepad - Functions List - Display functions defined using “def”

  • Ring Notepad - Distribute Menu - Distribute for Web Browser using WebAssembly (RingQt)

  • Form Designer - ToolBox - Larger width in Windows style

  • Form Designer - ToolBar - New icon for the (Select Objects) button

  • Gold Magic 800 - Level Editor - Decrease the window size

  • Super Man 2016 - Increase speed of (Game Over) message animation

  • Super Man 2016 - Better code for collision detection between SuperMan and Walls

  • Game Engine - Game Class - Icon property (set the window icon)

  • Set the window icon for many games developed using the Ring game engine

  • Type Hints library - Better Code

  • StdLib - IsMainSourceFile() function - Better Code

  • StdLib - TimeInfo() function - All TimeList() information are now available

  • StdLib - Map() & Filter() functions - Support accessing the global scope

  • StdLib - NewList() function is no longer required - Use the List() function

  • WebLib - Template() function - Support accessing the global scope

  • Objects Library - Better API

  • Natural Library - Better Code

  • RingLibSDL - Update LibSDL version from 2.0.10 to 2.0.12

  • RingOpenGL - Better Code (Added GLEW functions)

  • RingFreeGLUT - Better Code (Added many functions)

  • RingLibUV - Better Code - Samples that uses the VarPtr() function

  • RingPM - Support terminals that pass the executable name using UPPER case

  • Ring2EXE - Distribute for Web Browser using WebAssembly (RingQt)

  • Ring2EXE - Delete the executable file if we have it in the target folder

  • Ring2EXE - Always copy files listed in the resources file to the target folder

  • Ring2EXE - Distribute for Android - Copy Ring and RingQt folders

  • Ring Tests - Display report summary after running all of the tests

  • CodeGen - Add Option: PassNullBeforeVMPointer (For C++ Classes)

  • CodeGen - Using RING_API_ISCPOINTER() instead of RING_API_ISPOINTER()

  • Ring Compiler - ChangeRingKeyword - Support comments and many commands in the same line

  • Ring Compiler - ChangeRingOperator - Support comments and many commands in the same line

  • Ring Compiler - ring_parser.c - Better Code

  • Ring Compiler - ring_stmt.c - Better Code

  • Ring Compiler - ring_expr.c - Better Code

  • Ring Compiler - ring_state.c - Flag for the (Not Case Sensitive) feature

  • Ring Compiler - Load Command - Support loading libraries from ring/bin/load folder

  • Ring Compiler - LoadSyntax Command - Support loading libraries from ring/bin/load folder

  • Ring Compiler - Command: ? <expr> - Clear error message when the expression is missing

  • Ring Compiler - Better Error Messages

  • Ring VM - Using lists during definition - Support using the list itself (not only items)

  • Ring VM - List() Function - Support List(nRow,nCols) to create 2D lists

  • Ring VM - List() Function - Better Performance

  • Ring VM - Object File - Save/Restore the files list

  • Ring VM - ring_vmexpr.c - Better Code - Avoid magic numbers

  • Ring VM - ring_state_filetokens() - Optional parameter for the (Not Case Sensitive) feature.

  • Ring VM - ring_state_setvar() - Better Code

  • Ring VM - int2bytes(), float2bytes() & double2bytes() uses sizeof() function

  • Ring VM - fclose() function - Display error message if the FILE pointer is NULL

  • Ring VM - Extensions API - Support local scope of the caller when getting integer pointer