twinBASIC Update: July 7, 2026

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 I boldly predicted that twinBASIC (along with the Monaco editor) would replace VBA and its outdated development environment by 2025.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

twinBASIC Secures Strategic Investment

twinBASIC is here for the long haul.

In the most promising news to date for the long-term viability of Wayne Phillips's ambitious project, recently formed UK company TWINBASIC LTD secured its first round of external investment from tB VIP Gold Sponsor, RepSoft, LLC.

Here are some key excerpts from the press release:

TWINBASIC LTD today announced the successful completion of its first external investment round, securing strategic funding to accelerate development of the twinBASIC platform, expand the engineering team, and support the company's long-term vision.

...

The new funding will support continued investment in core compiler technology, tooling, platform reach, and the project's long-term sustainability.

Jim Adam (RepSoft, LLC), Lead Investor, said:
"From the first time I saw twinBASIC, I recognised both the technical achievement and the opportunity it represents.  A substantial global community of developers and businesses still depends on Visual Basic technologies, and twinBASIC offers them a credible, exciting path forward.

Wayne and the community have built something genuinely special.  Our role is to provide support, experience, and resources to help the company realise its full potential, and we're proud to be part of that journey."

Rest assured, Wayne is not going anywhere:

Development of twinBASIC will continue under Wayne Phillips' leadership, with the investment strengthening the platform's roadmap while preserving the project's long-term commitment to its users and community.

twinBASIC Dev Team Growing?

In addition to–and directly related to–the big announcement, Wayne hinted that the official development team will also be expanding, with one user asking in the Discord chat:

Does this funding mean you'll be able, at last, to employ other Devs to work with you full time on the project, Wayne?

Wayne's response:

Yes, it does. There will be a futher company announcement in that regard later this week.

Discord Chat Summary

^{* Auto-generated via Claude Sonnet 5}

Overview

This week was dominated by a major turning point for the project: Wayne Phillips announced that twinBASIC has secured strategic investment to accelerate development and expand the team, following a teaser announcement earlier in the week. Alongside the business news, the community continued its usual mix of technical troubleshooting—covering control arrays, MDI form navigation, modern UI styling via XAML Islands, and thermal printer integration—plus philosophical debate over what "beta" and "100% VB6 compatibility" really mean. Engagement was exceptionally high, with the investment announcement generating one of the largest reaction counts seen in the channel.

Licensing & Business

• Wayne Phillips announced on July 4th that "We've got some exciting news to share. Our next big announcement will be on Tuesday, 7th July."
• On July 7th, he confirmed twinBASIC secured strategic investment to accelerate development and expand the team, linking to a formal news post on the twinbasic.com site.
• Wayne confirmed the funding will allow him to bring on additional full-time developers, stating "Yes, it does 🙂 There will be a futher company announcement in that regard later this week."
• bclothier publicly thanked the investors behind the news: "Wonderful news! Thank you, Jim Adams & RepSoft, LLC!"
• A dedicated Company News page was added to the site, currently linked from the site footer, with Wayne noting "There will be another announcement tomorrow 😉"

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• A user reported that MDI child form navigation from a floating (non-MDI) form causes .Show to silently fail or jump to an error handler with Err.Number = 0, despite Load succeeding without error.
• fafalone asked for a minimal repro since "there's some issues with mdi but they generally worked last i heard," and demonstrated a working baseline MDI load/show example.
• Wayne directed the reporter to file the issue properly: "Please report in the #bugs channel... Always best to provide a minimal example project as well."
• fafalone noted that pasting a copied control in the IDE doesn't currently prompt for a rename the way VB6 does, though manually renaming does trigger the control array prompt; he added "it should ask on paste but not exactly a high priority I'd imagine."

VB6 Compatibility Philosophy

• A user questioned whether ongoing bug fixes to match VB6 could break existing twinBASIC functionality, prompting fafalone to clarify the project's approach.
• fafalone explained that "compatibility is usually the higher priority... it's language syntax and behavior compatible, not internal memory layout compatible; if something is using reverse engineered vb6 internals it's outside the scope", and noted edge cases involving undefined VB6 behavior are treated differently.
• Separately, community members debated the meaning of "100% compatible," with one user countering criticism by noting "If DBGrid support and other features are missing, that's not a bug, they're simply not implemented. A bug is something that exists but doesn't work correctly."
• Others defended the beta process broadly, with one contributor observing that "If 'beta' meant that there are still bugs, then no software in history has ever left the beta stage."

Modern UI & Excel/Windows Integration

• Discussion explored achieving Windows 11-style modern button visuals in tB, with deletedewd explaining that "a XAML Island is just a hWnd, you can drop it directly on the form or maybe choose a PictureBox."
• deletedewd cautioned that full native "modern look" support isn't trivial: "it's a huge effort to implement a full fledged projection... might as well remake .NET at that point, that's what it would take."
• wqweto shared his own GDI+-based button/control skinning library (NinePatch) as an alternative for classic-looking modern controls without needing XAML.
• wqweto flagged that authoring windowless UserControls in tB is still rough, noting "there's just a lot of properties combinations for these (e.g. HasDC=False, ClipBehavior=None, HitBehavior=None) so testing will take some time."

Community Support

• erice1234 asked how to create control arrays in tB after copying a button didn't trigger the usual VB6 rename prompt; fafalone advised renaming manually to trigger it.
• okas_o suggested using control indices directly for calculator-style UIs, noting "indices 0-9 can naturally map to digits 0-9... saves on having 10 handlers just for the digit buttons."
• Multiple users reported installation/whitelisting issues; Wayne pointed them to the FAQ, advising to "whitelist the whole folder, and then re-extract everything from the ZIP file to it."
• Printer integration was discussed at length, with wqweto sharing a VB6 service for direct thermal printing via ZPL/EPL-2, and deletedewd detailing use of WinRT's IppPrintDevice and PdlPassthroughProvider for PDF passthrough printing.

Conclusion

The week's clear highlight was the confirmation of strategic investment in twinBASIC, which the community met with overwhelming enthusiasm and cautious optimism about what it means for full-time development resourcing and long-term project stability. Technical discussions this week were comparatively routine—control arrays, MDI navigation quirks, and modern UI styling—but reflect the steady, incremental refinement expected during the beta phase as the project approaches its v1.0 milestone. With additional announcements teased for the following days and a formal news page now live, momentum appears to be building both technically and organizationally for twinBASIC's next phase.

Around the Web

Simple XAML Buttons Demo

Posted by VanGoghGaming in show-and-tell:

This project shows a simple XAML Islands demo with a couple of Buttons and a TextBox. It is DPI-Aware and Theme-Aware (will choose the theme automatically based on the system theme). You can also click on an icon to change the theme on the fly.

You can type a fictive email address in the TextBox which features basic syntax validation for the generic format of an email address. The "Okay" button is tied to this validation and will become enabled or disabled accordingly.

The TextBox also responds to the "Enter" key and will display a popup message whether the validation has passed or not. This functionality has been added to showcase the behavior of various events inside the XAML framework.

You can download the sample code (XamlButtons.twinproj) here.

Changelog

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

Releases · WaynePhillipsEA/twinbasic

Contribute to WaynePhillipsEA/twinbasic development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHubWaynePhillipsEA

• No new releases this week.