HexIDE Alpha 0.4.0Released 2 November. What's new

Your favourite IDE, reinvented in the open.

A cross-platform recreation of the Visual Basic 6 workbench: forms, toolbox, properties, project explorer and the debugger, running natively on Windows, macOS and Linux. It opens your VB6 projects as they are, runs them under F5, and saves them back the way VB6 writes them.

Download for Windows What's new in 0.4.0

Free and MIT licensed. macOS, Linux and the installer.

Properties - HexIDE
HexIDEApplication
HexIDE with an order-entry form open in the designer: the toolbox docked left, the form on its dotted grid with text boxes, a combo box, option buttons, a check box, a list box and command buttons, and the project explorer and properties window docked right.

The designer, project explorer and properties window, where your hands expect them.

Breakpoints, F8 stepping, Locals, Watches, the Call Stack and an Immediate window that evaluates. When an error goes unhandled, Debug breaks on the statement that raised it. Drag a control onto a form, set its properties, wire an event. New controls take VB6's own sizes and names, Format commands land on whole twips, and a control HexIDE doesn't model still shows where VB6 would draw it. Opens the real VB6 files rather than importing them, and saves them back as VB6 writes them. All 22 of the designer files VB6 itself ships survive a save byte for byte. Press F5 and typical form programs run: several forms, file I/O, Collection, menus, mouse and focus events. 577 of the language's 1,184 names run in full and 435 in part, and the rest are listed. MIT, both halves of the repository. No contributor licence agreement: contributions are inbound equals outbound. The whole interface in 30 languages, four of them right to left: 860 strings, with build-time checks so no control ships blank. File, Make builds a program that runs without HexIDE or .NET installed: one runner, with your project packed beside it. On Windows with VB6 installed, HexIDE can drive the real compiler instead. Native on Windows, macOS and Linux. Nothing to register and no Visual Studio required, with an optional installer on Windows. Over 13,000 tests run on every build. The interpreter's answers are checked against the real compiler, VB6 with Service Pack 6, rather than against what it's remembered doing.

Where it stands

What works, what's partial, and what isn't there yet.

Alpha means this list is still moving, and every release updates it. The long version, with each gap named, is on the Scope page.

Works

  • The workbenchDesigner, toolbox, properties, project explorer and menu editor.
  • Saving VB6 projectsVB6's own 22 template forms and its .vbp files round-trip byte for byte.
  • The debuggerBreakpoints, stepping, Locals, Watches, Call Stack and Immediate.
  • Language serversAttach any LSP server, and read the conversation in the Protocol Inspector.

Partial

  • The interpreter577 of the language's 1,184 names run in full and 435 in part. Typical form programs run.
  • ControlsSome properties are ignored, such as a TextBox's MaxLength and PasswordChar.
  • Make EXEA made program stops silently on a run-time error.
  • Object Browser and FindBoth work in part, and Find has no project scope.

Not yet

  • Third-party controls at run timeTheir forms open and save, but F5 refuses them.
  • Windows API and COMDeclare calls, CreateObject and type libraries.
  • MDI forms and printing
  • Autosave and crash recovery

By design

  • No native compilerOn Windows, HexIDE drives VB6's own.
  • No whole-program analysisThat belongs to a real language engine, behind a replaceable seam.
  • Classic dialects onlyThe language as Microsoft shipped it.

News

A release every Monday.

Each one gets a post here: what changed, what to watch for, and what is still missing.

All news Atom feed

Muscle memory

The keys still do what your hands know.

Every window is where you expect it. Prefer another IDE's keys? A keymap pack swaps them.

F5Run
F8Step into
Shift+F8Step over
F9Toggle breakpoint
Ctrl+GImmediate window
F4Properties
F7View code
Shift+F7View object
Ctrl+RProject explorer
Ctrl+EMenu editor

Built with it

Nine small programs, all plain VB6.

Three demoscene intros, built by agents driving the running IDE through its automation tools. Three ordinary form programs that run under F5 and build with the real compiler. And three that exist to be checked rather than watched.

neon-auroraIntro

A six-part Amiga-style intro: plasma, copper bars, starfield, glenz vector, vector balls and a sine-scroller, with MIDI music.

notepad-formsProgram

Windows' Notepad on forms: a CommonDialog, Line Input #, a modeless Find dialog and the Clipboard.

minesweeper-formsProgram

A Label field loaded at run time, right-click flags, a recursive flood fill and a Timer clock.

neon-vertigoIntro

130 vector balls on a Fibonacci lattice, spun on two axes and painted back to front.

battleship-formsProgram

The Battleship engine played on forms: a modal setup dialog, a Label grid and WithEvents.

battleshipCheck

The same trace, line for line, on this interpreter and from a native build by the real compiler.
All nine demos

Get it

Download HexIDE 0.4.0

Alpha: work on a copy of your project. Nothing is code-signed yet, so Windows shows a SmartScreen warning (More info, then Run anyway). On macOS, extract in Terminal, because Finder applies a quarantine flag an unsigned app cannot clear.

Windows

Installer, x64

Installs for all users, .NET included. Or the zip, nothing to install: x64 or arm64.

macOS

Apple silicon

Intel Macs take amd64. Extract with tar -xzf.

Linux

x64

Also arm64. Needs libX11, libICE, libSM, fontconfig and ICU.

Every build is on the release page, including smaller ones for a machine that already has the .NET 10 Runtime. Or build it from source.