console development environment

[thomas_remkus]

I'm doing all of my development in the console. I am trying to not let anything get in the way with understanding and knowing how this works. I feel that the windows editor to create my projects that comes with MASM is too much for me right now and I just want to stick with the console. Saying that, I have been learning much from creating my own "makeit.bat" and having it do the things I need. However, using "edit.exe" is just horrible. I have installed cygwin and am using "mcedit" but it's not too much better.

Can anyone recommend a console editor that maybe has some syntax coloring, a ctrl+c and ctrl+v copy/paste system, and is free. Google just goes nuts when I ask it for this.

thomas

[tekhead009]

I'd reccomend not torturing yourself by devoloping entirely through a DOS Console. RadASM is an excellent win editor, if you're not using some kind of learning package (Kip Irvings package, for example, is difficult to get working through Rad, I don't know about the HLA stuff from AoA). Batch files are, even now, very useful, and learning to navigate DOS is critical in my opinion; but it really slowed down my learning. I spent way too much time copying files as backups, compile, link, test, erase write a batch to do it, change the batch for every project, etc..

[dsouza123]

Setedit should fill the requirements.

http://setedit.sourceforge.net/

[Mark Jones]

Or see what the WinASM IDE can look like:

http://heliosstudios.net/temp/winasm.png

It is possible to do everything from a command prompt... but it's so much more convenient with a nice IDE. :)

[thomas_remkus]

You sold me. I just downloaded and am now using WinASM. Thanks!

[Faiseur]

WinASm and RadAsm is excellent integrated IDE. EasyCode is good, but I do not think that it is what you seek. The most advanced IDE is in my opinion RadASM by KetilO

http://radasm.visualassembler.com/


You find support for certain IDE (WinAsm, RadAsm, EasyCode and WinAsm) here:

http://www.masmforum.com/simple/index.php?board=10.0

[Jeff]

Or see what the WinASM IDE can look like:

http://heliosstudios.net/temp/winasm.png

It is possible to do everything from a command prompt... but it's so much more convenient with a nice IDE. :)

wow thats pretty, lots of useful stuff (especially the "code library").  i just might make the transition.  :)

OT: in your screenie, there was a NOP with a comment "for debugging".  how does having that there help with debugging?

[edit]
any screenies of the radasm environment?

[tekhead009]

Here's one of RadASM

I haven't tried WinASM myself yet. RadASM doesn't look as pretty, but I'm no aesthetic.
It's updated often too, seems they come out with a new minor version every month or two; everytime I remember to check. It's got all kinds of bells and whistles as far as functionality goes.

[Mark Jones]

I haven't tried RadASM yet, but those that use it think very highly of it. :)

Jeff, the code library is a plugin for WinASM which initally comes blank. You can highlight code and put it in the library very easily, and vice-versa. (Also note the default color scheme looks a bit like RadASM's, you have to tweak it to get the colors you like. :) As for debugging, the NOP is my way to do a "recoverable" INT3. Open the .exe in OllyDbg (Ctrl-F9 in WinASM) then search for NOP, set a breakpoint there, then run the app. Execution stops at the NOP, then you can step through the following code and watch the registers & memory. :)

Thomas, the WinASM forums URL is http://www.winasm.net/forum if you didn't already find it. Installation can be a bit tricky I found. Be sure to look in the forums for newer components.

Faiseur, I thought for sure that EasyCode was going to skyrocket right up there with RadASM and WinASM, but it has been very quiet lately. Ramon is such a great guy and such a capable programmer, maybe he has been busy. :'(

[Faiseur]

Custom Controls with RadAsm is very good...

Examples:

RaFile custom control in RadAsm in one of my projects:  http://uk.trojanfrance.com/cc2.jpg

in action: http://uk.trojanfrance.com/cc5.jpg

WebBrowser custom control in RadAsm: http://uk.trojanfrance.com/cc4.jpg

Hyperlink custom control in RadAsm: http://uk.trojanfrance.com/cc1.jpg

and soon DrawProgress in RadAsm: http://uk.trojanfrance.com/cc3.jpg :-)

etc...

[tekhead009]

Did I hear preset keyboard shortcut straight to OllyDebug? You've sold me on the idea of at least giving WinASM a downlod and compare to Rad. That's a good idea using NOP as a breakpoint too; I'm definately going to use that.

[Faiseur]

Faiseur, I thought for sure that EasyCode was going to skyrocket right up there with RadASM and WinASM, but it has been very quiet lately. Ramon is such a great guy and such a capable programmer, maybe he has been busy.

Yes, I hope that Ramon is well and will continue its work.  I work with RadAsm but I appreciated EasyCode which made me understand several things in programming.

[donkey]

Did I hear preset keyboard shortcut straight to OllyDebug? You've sold me on the idea of at least giving WinASM a downlod and compare to Rad. That's a good idea using NOP as a breakpoint too; I'm definately going to use that.

RadASM also has a KB shortcut to run your app in Olly (or any other debugger you choose) CTRL-D will start the process in a debugger, it also has integrated debugging and breakpoints as well as VKim's debug library, which I find a little more useful for normal day to day coding.

WinAsm is an excellent package, I have tried it and found that it was extremely powerful however I prefer RadASM, it is a much more mature IDE and has several key features that I was looking for when trying out IDEs. But then neither WinAsm nor EasyCode existed when I was choosing an IDE. In the end you should try a few and pick the one that is right for you, all of them allow you to plug in and modify them to better suit your needs.

[tekhead009]

I gave it a try and I think I'll stick to RadASM.

Errors don't automatically go to the line that they occured on (or at least the general area), and more importantly structures don't intellisence!
I like the way it works and looks: the intellisence, functionally, works much better, and the interface seems more logical and simplified in WinASM.

Unless there are options to correct these things..

edit: My mistake, structs do intellisence; the one I was using wasn't registered to work yet I guess.

[donkey]

Haven't really played around with the Intellisense feature of either RadASM or WinAsm, as a matter of fact I tend to shut off those kind of things, can't stand having my IDE making suggestions to me. The most used features of RadASM for me is the MSDN library availability through the F1 key, pretty much a feature I added to Qweerty's help addin. Structures should be properly displayed and the hints should appear in RadASM, not sure what you mean there. RadASM is extremely configurable, and unfortunately "the number of necessary settings rises exponentially in relation to the number of configurable features" (Donkey's Law #1) so the I/F is choppy in places but overall it is smooth, consistent and unintrusive. It pretty much exceeds any requirements I have ever had, and in places where I found it lacking I just write an addin to do what I need, most are project specific but those that are general purpose I post with source.