twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: July 29, 2026

Highlights include an update on the forthcoming LLVM release and community discussion of source control GUIs, localization, and RTL support on Win 7/10.

Mike Wolfe

Jul 29, 2026 • 5 min read

On April 23, 2021, I helped Wayne Phillips introduce the world to twinBASIC at the Access DevCon Vienna conference. I boldly predicted that twinBASIC (along with the Monaco editor) would replace VBA and its outdated development environment by 2025. (And I was oh so close...) With that goal in mind, this weekly update is my attempt to keep the project fresh in the minds of the VBA development community.

Every ~~Sunday~~ ~~Monday~~ week, I will be providing updates on the status of the project, linking to new articles discussing twinBASIC, and generally trying to increase engagement with the project. If you come across items that should be included here, please leave a comment below.

Here are some links to get involved with the project:

Custom twinBASIC IDE Installation Guide
twinBASIC Discord Server (chat about the project)
twinBASIC Documentation (list of new features not in VBx)
GitHub Issue Tracker (report bugs)

Highlights

LLVM Progress Update

Posted by Wayne in Discord on July 29:

A brief update on the LLVM work; we're still on track for a first LLVM-enabled release on or around 7th August. Just this morning I got Lems64 (https://github.com/fafalone/Lems64) to fully compile and run perfectly with LLVM (both 32-bit and 64-bit builds). PhotoDemon is around 95% there.

Discord Chat Summary

^{* Auto-generated via Claude Sonnet 5}

Overview

This week's discussion centered on the twinBASIC team's continued push toward LLVM support, alongside real-world testing feedback from long-time community members. A lengthy side conversation on VB6 RightToLeft locale quirks and source control tooling also generated significant engagement, reflecting the community's broad mix of legacy compatibility troubleshooting and forward-looking development work.

LLVM & v1 Roadmap Progress

waynephillipsea confirmed the project remains on schedule, stating the team is "still on track for a first LLVM-enabled release on or around 7th August."
He reported a major milestone: the Lems64 sample project now "fully compile[s] and run[s] perfectly with LLVM (both 32-bit and 64-bit builds)."
PhotoDemon, another flagship compatibility test project, is reported to be around 95% functional under the new LLVM backend, signaling the port is nearing completion.

Testing & Bug Reports

yereverluvinunclebert_49972 continued regular regression testing against the latest twinBASIC build, encountering and diagnosing several issues.
One VBP import error ("Parser error: text 'Attribute VB_' not found") was traced back to source-control-induced file corruption (likely CRLF stripping) rather than a twinBASIC bug.
fafalone noted that the importer now handles broken line breaks more gracefully, though other corruption scenarios can still cause issues.
A separate bug was filed regarding the .ListIndex property being zeroed out during an automatically raised Click event, with the reporter noting it was mistakenly posted in Discord instead of GitHub.
Testing also revealed a previously broken program now working correctly in twinBASIC, with textbox population issues resolved and performance improved.

VB6 Legacy Support: RightToLeft Locale Issue

fafalone sought a working hotfix for VB6 RightToLeft (RTL) support on Windows 7/10, noting the original Microsoft KB (979643) download link is dead and available copies fail to install due to certificate errors.
Community members (krool5045, lm3548) suggested the issue may relate to the non-Unicode app locale setting in Control Panel rather than requiring the old hotfix, and that Windows 7 SP1 may have already resolved it.
Troubleshooting extended into API-level testing, with fafalone finding that GetLocaleInfoEx failed on an Arabic-locale Windows install despite working fine on English systems, while GetSystemDefaultLCID unexpectedly still returned English.
Ultimately, fafalone indicated the WinXP-based setup was functional enough to proceed without resolving the Windows 10/RTL hotfix issue.

Community Support: Source Control Tools

A casual poll on source control GUI preferences drew several responses, with dr.bobby recommending TortoiseSVN and noting no complaints using it professionally.
Alternatives discussed included git-svn for combining SVN workflows with Git tooling, though some members expressed discomfort with command-line Git usage.
glevz shared frustration with SourceTree's usability for locating code across repositories, illustrating a common pain point among the group.

Localization Practices Discussion

Prompted by a tangent on language/accent banter, yereverluvinunclebert_49972 raised the challenge of designing programs for easy language-swapping, citing past experience with a JavaScript-based multilingual widget versus a harder-to-localize VB6 rewrite.
fafalone shared that commercial projects typically use string tables or external language files for localization.
As a personal habit outside formal localization work, fafalone noted keeping all strings as module-level constants at the top of code to ease future localization efforts.

Conclusion

The week's biggest development news was confirmation that the LLVM-enabled release remains on track for early August, backed by concrete progress on real-world compatibility projects like Lems64 and PhotoDemon. Meanwhile, ongoing community testing continues to surface and resolve edge-case bugs, reinforcing the importance of pre-release validation. Side discussions on legacy VB6 locale support and source control tooling highlighted the community's practical, troubleshooting-oriented culture even as attention increasingly shifts toward the upcoming v1 milestone.

Around the Web

Quiet week on the interwebs...

Changelog

Here are the updates from the past week. You can also find this information by visiting the GitHub twinBASIC Releases page.

Nothing new this week.
Next release is scheduled for August 7: