Getting Started with MapBasic?

Also if you are looking for a way to learn MapBasic more than a way to learn programming, there is a huge help in MapInfo Pro thru the MapBasic window.

Open the MapBasic window (Options > Show MapBasic Window) and do the task you want to code in MapBasic in MapInfo Pro. MapInfo Pro will now write the MapBasic statements required. You can now copy these into your MapBasic source code and work from this.

It's not all that can be done this way, but it gives you a very good insight into a lot of the MapBasic statements

There are also a number of web pages where you can find tools including MapBasic source code to get you on the right track.

Sometimes it might be helpful to have a look at the source code for an existing tool to see how it has been made.

Have a look at these sites:

• http://communitydownloads.pbinsight.com/
• http://georezo.net/jparis/
• http://www.jpsservices.org.uk/blog/category/mapbasic
• TWIAV - MapBasic Tips & Tricks
• The MapInfo Pro Developer Group on PB Knowledge Communities
• (http://mapinfotools.com/) This is not working properly anymore
• (http://www.directionsmag.com/files/) This has been taken down

Some of these site do hold some pretty old tools but many of these will still work.

You can also find some other discussion forums where you can find answers and ask your own:

• The MapInfo Pro Community on PB Knowledge Communities
• The MapInfo-L on Google Groups

As for actual writing MapBasic application I will only recommend the MapBasic Text Editor for small projects. As soon as you start creating more advanced projects I would recommend that you find a better text editor.

One option here would to use the MapBasic IDE developed by Mustafa ÖZÇETİN. On the blog you can find a very good guide to getting started with the MapBasic IDE.

I was lucky enough to learn MapBasic from some other colleagues. I have not found many resources for MapBasic other than what Pitney Bowes offers on the site.
I spotted this tutorial that looks fairly good for new starters.

• Online Forum
• Knowledge Base
• MapBasic Product Documentation v9 link.

There is currently only a handful of MapBasic questions on this site, and only a few people following that tag, but if you have more specific questions, feel free to ask here and we will try and help out.

Not a tutorial but something I found very useful is this site: http://www.twiav.nl/php/mapbasic.php

I would highly recommend setting up Notepad++ (or something similar). Syntax highlighting, bulk indenting and bulk commenting can speed things up massively.