[Gambas-user] Declaring 'Public pbSwitch As Object[16]' throws error 'Syntax error in FMain.class:3'

[Tobias Boege]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017, Doug Hutcheson wrote:
> Thanks for the explanation, Tobias. Having fixed the declaration, I am
> able to run the code, but all I see is an empty form with no controls.
> Sigh. I will keep hacking until I understand enough to make it work.
> 

In case you don't want to figure it out on your own (although you didn't
ask), this is most likely because the code uses the Picture[] cache.
It accesses Picture["imgSwtchOn.png"] and Picture["imgSwtchOff.png"],
but you probably don't have those files in your application (you don't
unless you added them on your own). Since Picture[] is the picture cache,
it won't raise an error if the named pictures aren't found and returns a
silent Null instead. Assigning Null to a PictureBox.Picture clears the
PictureBox. This is why you don't see anything.

Actually this example is horrible. Not only uses it resources which
aren't available by default, it also relies on the geometry of the
PictureBoxes and Mouse coordinates to identify which PictureBox
raised the event, instead of simply using Last. And then it needlessly
uses Object instead of PictureBox, and uses a *bitmask* to store the
on/off state of the pictures instead of just the PictureBox's Tag
property. Not to mention it isn't indented properly. There is a high
density of things I would advise to avoid here. Why did you choose
this of all to learn from? :-)

I updated the example and it should work out of the box now.

Regards,
Tobi

-- 
"There's an old saying: Don't change anything... ever!" -- Mr. Monk