Blitz Basic 2.1 Release Notes
                   =============================


1. Introduction
---------------

Welcome to Mark Sibly's BlitzBasic programming language. A powerful
integrated programming environment for all Amiga computers.

New to version 2.1:

- online help
- restructured library handling
- bug free parameter passing
- comprehensive AGA and 3.0 support

The main Blitz program disk has been put together so users programming
on 1 meg single floppy A500 systems can boot straight from the disk
and start programming immediately. Those with more powerful systems
should note that due to space restrictions the advanced debugger,
third party libraries and enhanced editor can be found on the extras
disk.



2. Up and Running
-----------------

A lot of reviews of Blitz have criticised it for being unstable. Most
often they have missed the fundamental concept of runtime errors that
Blitz uses to stop your program crashing during development.

When runtime errors are enabled from the compiler options, Blitz compiles
your program with checks on every command so it can't do the guru thing
and make us at Acid look bad. These checks however make your program bigger
and slower making us at Acid look bad anyway.

As we don't really care what we look like, we offer this advise; always
enable runtime errors until you are quite sure your program can not
fall over (bringing up the runtime error debugger). Once you are sure
it is bulletproof THEN disable error checking and let it fly. This also
applies to official Acid demos as wrong directories and unfound files
may cause errors also.


3. Online Help
--------------

Previous versions of Blitz incorporated a simple syntax help system
whereby pressing the Help key when the cursor was on a Blitz command
would print the syntax of that command on the title bar.

Blitz2.1 now sports a full online reference manual, simply use the Right
Amiga/Help keyboard combination to invoke the Blitz online help software.


4. Library handling
-------------------

BlitzBASIC commands are loaded by the program from several sources:

acidlibs - a single file containing standard Blitz commands
deflibs  - commands compiled from third party libs found in blitzlibs:
userlibs - all libs found in directories branching off blitz2:userlibs

The reason for this change is to make it easier for Acid Software to
distribute libs in the future. Users who build up a collection of third
party libraries in their deflibs file will be able to upgrade their
acidlibs without reconstructing their entire blitzlibs: volume.

Those developers creating their own libraries can now use the userlibs
drawer to hold beta versions of their compiled libs allowing for much
faster reloading of libs during development.