In the initial chapters, you will probably see the commands NPrint, Print, MouseWait and End used a lot - these are pretty simple commands which we will use to display results in the example programs. For the moment, you can make do with the explanation that Print prints things to the Blitz CLI window (NPrint also moves onto the next line after printing) and MouseWait waits for the left mouse button to be pressed. The End command exits the program and returns to the editor. More complete explanations will be given in the relevant topics.

Anything in the descriptive text enclosed in square brackets ([...]) means that the text inside the square brackets is optional. Anything in the descriptive text enclosed in angled brackets (<...>) means that it should be replaced with whatever is described inside the brackets. In the code examples the square and angled brackets mean something else, but that will be explained when necessary.

Generally speaking, the inline source code examples will look like this in your browser (go on, try it; everyone has to start with a hello world program ;) :

; Here is some example code NPrint "Hell world" MouseWait End

Something to bear in mind is that you do not have to follow the sections as they are laid out in the contents page. Most topics will be covered as self contained units, although things like the Intuition commands are obviously all related and should probably be looked at in order. I know a lot of people will have no need or want to learn things like lists at the start, so just skip that part and come back to it later if you want.

Finally, it would be most appreciated if people gave us feedback about the contents of these pages. Any mistakes should be pointed out (after all, what's the point in imparting knowledge if it is incorrect?), and if you want to contribute by either writing part of a section, a whole section, or simply want to point out a better way of doing something please tell us.

The next section will give an introduction to Blitz Basic 2 and the initial information you will need to be able to use the language.